


Rozencruz Redux

by strange_glow



Series: Virus [6]
Category: Weiß Kreuz, 魔界医師メフィスト | Makai Ishi Mephisto (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Humor, M/M, OMGWTF, non-pc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-06 13:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5418461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_glow/pseuds/strange_glow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warning:  This story is violent; sexually charged; politically in-correct; patently immoral; sarcastically mocking of PC-ness, and contains statements not necessarily approved of by even the author.  These are, after all, the bad guys.</p><p>Sarazawa Yuuji (the now non-amnesiatic Kudoh Yohji) has convinced Crawford what a lark it would be to take over Esset. Hilarity ensues.</p><p>Continuing in the Virus 'universe'.  Yes the egotistical blond has his own universe now. *eyeroll*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Chapter One

 

Yuuji sat on the padded bench in the hospital lobby, watching through the windows as the setting sun streaked the sky and clouds with marmalade colors.  Japan had the most spectacular sun sets, they seemed to go on for hours.  It made one slow down, contemplate things. If one had the time.  For all the hard work in a day, it was a national habit to slow down the winding down at the end of the day.  Heart disease and debt were the hand maidens of being slow to sloth.  He wished he _were_ sitting in a bar.  It would make things so much easier. 

“Virus,” he said after the long silence between them engendered by Aya’s pouring out his heart over his sister _yet again_. 

Aya looked up at him.  _He_ was sitting hunched over, his fingers laced clench handed between his spread knees; the macho-man’s fetal position.  The opposite of Yuuji’s arm-and-knee man-spread sprawl on the bench he was enthroned on. 

“When you’ve graduated the organization’s training, above what they level ‘D’ for talent, they give you a code name based on your talent and abilities.  It helps them chose operatives in a hurry, I suppose.”  He was very tired.  It showed.  His glance in the mirror earlier had shown him a hangdog face he hadn’t seen since he quit seriously being Kudoh.  He needed a real rest, a serious vacation.  Definitely a change of lifestyle.  Funny, Brad had looked fine a little while ago, despite the rough time he’d had.  The same as that last wonderful weekend in Paris, with the bright just after noon sun bouncing off the pavements, Spring fresh in the air. 

Maybe it was all subjunctive.  If this be life, what new hell approach-eth?  Wrinkles.  Botox?  The sad, grasping slide into lost beauty or the graceful decline of just letting it happen?

Where the hell was he?  Oh, yeah, explaining to the whack-job how life didn’t have to stop at ‘sister’.  In fact, that normal people just walked away and forgot about family entirely until special occasions ( _funerals?_ ) and holidays ( _a belated post card; trite scribble legible only by cliché_ ).

Aya shoved his knee.  “Are you awake?” he complained. 

Yuuji blinked. “Sorry, went off the tracks into the bush for a moment there.  Life was catching up with me.  This isn’t easy without a tumbler of booze in my hand.  Or a cigarette.  I _need_ to get over that damned brainwashing!” He drew back a hand off the bench to rub some circulation into his face.  “My code name is Virus. I lied,” he admitted honestly, “when I said it was just a name.  But then, you know that.”

“You lie a lot,” Aya said, slumping back in the chair he was seated in with a sigh. He frowned at the decorative mosaics on the wall across from the windows.  Even lax, his bared arm muscles looked tense, the knuckles on his hands a little too big from lifting the weight of that sword ( _and punching walls_ ). 

“Well, you’re not going to like what I have to say no matter how I say it,” Yuuji continued.  “My particular talent is nothing spectacular, like mind reading—. ”

Aya made a noise, “Thank the gods.”

Yuuji shot him a ‘shut up’ look.  “Those are the Level A types. I was listed as C. Maybe I’ve gotten a little more adept at it since then, but that’s just my ego side tracking me—Aya, my talent is infecting people.”

Aya turned purple eyes to him, a bit wide with implication. 

“Not _venereal disease_ if that’s what you’re thinking,” Yuuji growled. 

“You said you didn’t read minds,” Aya said bluntly.  “What do you mean, _infecting_ people?”

“ _Quiet down_ ,” Yuuji warned as other people in the lobby glanced over at them.  “You know that voice of yours carries.  Now shut up and let me explain.”

“I am freaking out, you just can’t see it yet,” Aya stated, his voice low and dangerous.  “Explain!” he hissed.

“It’s subtle, that’s why I’m only a C,” Yuuji took a deep breath.  “Say you have a group you want to slip into, convince them you are one of them.  Go undercover as a member.  My talent lets me take a short cut.  No months of research, no relearning how to do anything, nothing like that.  Not even the language most of the time.  I just show up.  My—chemistry,” he paused, thinking this over.  “Infects people with the idea that I’m one of them.  That I belong there.  Sort of a biological charisma.  It would be pretty harmless, really.  Except that along with that, I was trained from childhood to take advantage of it.

“Basically, my body chemistry puts out a ‘come hither’ that’s pretty strong.  Strong enough so that if I combine it with hypnosis techniques and slight of hand, I can make people do anything I want them to.  But if I stay in one place long enough, it affects people I have no intention of influencing.”  He looked at Aya again.  “I think maybe the crappy lifestyle; the booze and the smoking, messed up my body enough so that while I was still amnesiac, the effect was curtailed.”

Aya had gone blank faced.  Little switches were clicking into place, Yuuji could guess.  “You—stopped smoking, stopped drinking, stopped staying out late, and—I—,” he went silent. 

Yuuji resisted the urge to reach over and take his hand, to keep him under control.  “So the question is, do you _want_ to be in love with me?” he asked softly. 

Aya looked at the floor, his jaw tightening, then he frowned again.  He closed his eyes and scratched the top of his head.  “You think I only—because of this chemistry of yours?” He opened his eyes, but still aimed them at the floor.

Yuuji kept his mouth shut.  No need to incriminate himself any further.

“And if that was part of it,” those eyes finally focused on him.  “That—my sister—means I’d—maybe come to my senses and we’re through?”

Yuuji decided the floor was pretty interesting after all. 

“You’re telling me the truth so I can make up my mind?”

Yuuji pushed his sandy hair back behind an ear and shifted. “Pretty much.” _‘And despite myself, maybe I’m just manipulating you even more.’_

Aya shifted out of the chair he’d isolated himself in to sit on the bench beside Yuuji.  He leaned closer, just not enough for their shoulders to even brush, his hand on the bench between them to brace himself, and spoke quietly. “Even if you are an evil shit head, I love you.  If you _can_ control me with your mysterious power, tell me to go away.  See if it really works, _this time_.”

Yuuji looked at him.  Then he put an arm around Aya’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, and leaned his forehead on the red head’s temple, ruffling that fluffy mop with his hand.  “You’re such a raving lunatic, who else would put up with you?”

Aya slid closer now and got comfortable, self-consciously smoothing his hair and trying not to notice some of the looks they were getting from others stuck waiting from the ER over spill. “You’re not afraid you’re going to get ‘accidentally’ killed just for being near me?”

Yuuji looked at him. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” he lied.  He brushed some of the too long bangs out of those gorgeous eyes.  “What I have thought of is will you come with me?  Back to Esset?”

“When even your _ex_ wanted to leave them?” Aya growled, body tensing, mood changing instantly.

“Yeah,” Yuuji said. “Except that now it’s more like, lets take the remaining organization over and oh—I don’t know—maybe make the world a better place or something.  The anti-anti-Kritiker.”

“That’s just— _stupid_ ,” Aya said.  Then he frowned more, “That’s Kudoh talk.”

“Well, it’s something,” Yuuji smiled mildly.  The little shit was trying to manipulate _him._

    *     *     *  

“Still mad at you,” Schuldig warned as Brad snuggled closer to him in the bed that evening. 

Brad slipped arms around him to pull Schuldig’s narrow back close to his chest and gave him a squeeze.  “When are you not mad at me?” he laughed softly. 

“You only get away with it because you are so damned handsome,” Schuldig complained.  “So, what are we going to do?  Barring the crazy idea.  If we run, they’ll come after us.  No one escapes the inquisition.  Leaving Jei here is one thing, he’s happy as a squirrel in a nut tree.  I don’t feel like having to watch my back all the time, it impedes my naturally sunny nature.”

Brad nuzzled the back of his neck, “So you like Yuuji’s idea?”

Schuldig frowned, resting his hand on his cheek on the pillow. “Go back and stage a coup?  Nagi could get the records, but it would take some time to sort out who is going to get downsized.”

“You mean I can’t just line everyone up and shoot every third person?” Brad ran the tip of his tongue over a pink earlobe. 

“Are you mocking my culture?” Schuldig squirmed, then turned over to look up at him. 

Brad who was now propped up on one elbow, smiled down at him.  “Who’s a naughty nazi, then?” he teased. 

“No,” Schuldig stated.  “Still mad at you.”

“No, you’re not,” Brad tweaked the end of his nose. 

“No, I am,” Schuldig rubbed his nose and glared. 

“No, you’re not.  _You’re_ just playing hard to get.” Brad grinned at him.

“Shows how much you know,” the red head said sullenly.  “And you can stop poking me in the side with that thing.”

“What thing?  This thing?” Brad poked him again with a shift of his hips.

“Are you sure you should be doing that?  Stitches or something?”

Brad shuddered.  “I think the doc untied every one of them earlier.  A sensation I never want to repeat.”

“I could kiss that and make it better,” Schuldig offered. 

“Despite still being mad at me?” Brad looked into Tiffany blue eyes, a smile in his own.

“You know us _nazies_ , we obey despite ourselves,” Schuldig’s tone was just a little more on the irritated side than the teasing.

“But I didn’t order you to do anything,” Brad did the ‘innocent’ thing far better than most in his graduating class and five more below it. 

Schuldig laughed and gave up, putting his arms around the man’s neck.  “Welcome home, Herr Crawford,” he said, with a wicked smile. 

    *     *     *

Aya walked into the room with feet that didn’t want to go, leaving the door slightly open behind him.  His sister looked up at him with a bright smile.  “Ni-chan!  I keep forgetting how much you’ve grown!” She was sitting up a little at a comfortable but supportive, looking limp, but happy. 

“How are you this morning?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Tired,” she admitted.  “After sleeping for nearly three years!  I still can’t believe it, but then I see you and I suppose it’s true.” She looked at him fondly as he pulled up the chair and sat down.  “It’s so strange to see you looking so grown up.  The nurses here are strange, too.  They all look alike.”

“Yes,” he said.  “They—it’s hard to explain.  This whole place is strange.  Aya—I have to explain a lot of things,” he swallowed hard.  He took the letter, a thick fold of papers that barely fit the envelope he had purchased for it, and looked at it.  “I wrote it all down, to make it easier.”  He looked at her.  “No matter what you think of me after this, I am still your brother.”  He paused.  “But a lot has changed in three years.  Don’t let it make you sad, because—everything is better now.”  He laid the letter on the bedcovers.  “I’m going to go now, so you can read that.  Then have the nurse call me, and I will come back as soon as I can.  I might be a bit busy, but I will come.”

“Ni-chan,” she said softly, worried about him; he could see that. 

He stood up.  “Just read it,” he said and patted her head as if she were still thirteen.  “You know me, it’s just easier this way.  Okay?”

She smiled faintly, still troubled.  “Okay,” she said. 

 

“I don’t know about you,” Yuuji said when he came out.  He was leaning on the wall beside the door with his arms crossed, having listened in on everything, as he had been expected to.

“Shut up,” Aya said, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets. 

“Fair enough,” Yuuji said.  “You want to go up to the observation deck and watch the pterodactyls?”  

Aya frowned.  Then looked at him.  “Yeah,” he said, some of the boy he’d been returning to his face.  “Real dinosaurs.”

Yuuji slung an arm around his shoulders, and gave him a short, tight hug.  “Real dinosaurs.  _As opposed_ to mutant, tentacled catfish, Rocs and giant snakes, and spider people.  I wonder if this place has a zoo?”

    *      *     * 

Nagi frowned a bit, calculating the sanity of the plan. “Soooo, Antarctica’s out?” he said with slow seriousness.  They sat in the suite’s small scale living area, Brad having tired himself out just getting up and ready for the day.  He wasn’t looking too bad, just a little paler than usual; you could tell he was pissed at the world for being so ‘old man’ about it.  Nagi could barely remember his own more complicated and extended time in hospital; his brain having deleted the file as useless as soon as possible. But he felt some semblance of ‘disguised sympathy’ was in order. Just enough to get away with out getting smacked for being patronizing.  Or just—silly about it. 

“I do realize you _are_ a teenager and thus prone to excess washes of hormones and ill-founded idealism, but _no_ , you can’t invade Antarctica and turn the penguins into your evil zombie army.  How much time a day _do_ you actually spend on video gaming?” Brad narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Nagi’s eyes shifted to Tot who was obsessing over some version of Bejeweled, or Candy Crush, or whatever on the little Hello Kitty tablet, ear buds plugged in to keep her from blasting everyone with the silly noises.  Gaming having been not allowed in her previous household, she was in a whole new world in more ways than one.  “Not a lot,” he said mildly, mentally crossing his fingers behind his back and maintaining a perfectly blank expression.  _Not in comparison, and mostly—long thought out campaign games now.  Excellent mental training, more than just a game, really._      

“Yessss,” Brad said, letting him know he was not getting away with anything. 

The problem was, Esset so thoroughly trained its people in reading body language and speech patterns, you never knew when you were being interrogated and/or manipulated, and thus naturally assumed at all times that everyone knew _everything_ ( _had_ he been in the bathroom a bit _too_ long this morning?) and the jig, as they say, was permanently up.  Between a telepath and a precog, it was all he could do to maintain a pleasant state of not giving a shit who knew anything ( _because the two of_ them _together, eugh, were far worse than anything _he _could be accused of_ ) in proper balance with bouts of self preserving paranoia.  Fortunately, unlike that _idiot, Sedgewick_ , he had resisted the urge to tattle on them to The Three, and _guess who was still alive to tell about it_. Should he have chosen to, that is.  As long as they let him get at least 5 hours of sleep a night, all was fair.      

“Reduce the entire organization to who’s just phoning it in, loyal to the cause, stealing paperclips, and actively a thorn in our sides, and have the report done by Wednesday. I want a day to go over it before we leave Shinjuku.”

 _‘That would be: Bitterly in it because of family; ‘Blood is my Honor’ old school; Fools in over their heads; and Designs of Their Own.  Good gods, that’s every one of us.’ _Nagi checked himself.  Well, that made it easy.  Just sign off on anyone who even remotely resembled Crawford statistically.  He nodded. But then, “It might be a bit off.  The time difference…”

“Damn it,”Brad said with a wince. 

_(Haha! Plans foiled, Nagi’s little judgmental inner demon crowed.  He mentally smacked it off his shoulder.)_

“Alright then, do what you can and double check it later.  It will at least save us time.  From what Det. Kabane was implying with such brutal coyness, the shit hit the fan at some point and we need to be prepared.”

“And Fujimiya’s sister?” Nagi said, bringing up the metaphorically burning bush that was metaphorically in the room or on the table or whatever.  “Now that she is actually awake.”

Brad frowned.  “She will have to be left here.” 

“We could have Jei keep an eye on her.  Kill her if she shows signs of heading for the exit.”

“No, I told him he would have his freedom.  I won’t turn around and press him back into service even as a small favor,” his eyes did that creepy thing, suddenly going all inhuman and remote; snake like.  “It could well be that— _she_ is the catalyst for the shit storm.  I’ll have to look into that.”

‘ _And click, back to normal.  What a dead give away, to anyone who knew him to look for it.’_ Nagi finished the last of his coffee and stood up, holding the cup in both hands.  The shower had stopped running in the bathroom, Schuldig would be out soon.  “This is going to be an interesting week,” he said dryly.  He reached over and tapped Tot on the head.  She paused her game, smiling up at him.  “Bathroom’s yours soon,” he let her know.   And would be for the next two hours.  _And they teased him?_   “What are we going to do _after_ the coup?”

“Coup is such a nasty word in this situation,” Brad said mildly.  “After all, _it’s family_.  Lets call it re-organization—a re-affirming of goals.  That will go over so much better.” He finished his own coffee and held up the cup _(Oh yes, just assume!)_ for Nagi to take with his own to the kitchenette.  “Well, what ever our goal is, it’s not going to be boring.”

Right. 

Chaos; more of. 

Nagi could roll with that.    

 


	2. Two

 

 

“You _let_ her go out alone!” Brad blasted Nagi with the question two days later.   He’d walked out into the living room in his bathrobe half way through the morning, not a usual thing with him.

“Not alone,” Nagi explained.  “I’m busy, she was bored with playing games, so she went out with Doll to show Soyougi-kun the ropes.  He promised not to let Tot kidnap Doll, and Doll will keep them both out of trouble.”

“And you really expect this to happen?” Brad demanded, shoving his hair back from his forehead.  “In _Shinjuku_?”

“Well, you were busy, I took initiative,” Nagi looked just as harried, his laptop again open on the coffee table.  “Are you sure you should be _that_ busy?  What if you pull something and have a relapse?  You know you might herniate your wound or something, right?”

Brad was debating slapping him, he saw that hand twitch.  “You’re an awful trusting soul for someone who’s been raised properly,” he said instead.

“Do you want this report, or do you want me to go after what you call my ‘insane’ girl friend?  Soyougi is as katana mad as Fujimiya, has a disagreement with gravity, and Doll is probably one of the most dangerous things in Shinjuku.  Because frankly, I am getting stir crazy and you are obviously just shutting Schuldig up because he is just as stir crazy—I’m going too far and going to get shot, aren’t I? Shutting up now,” he went back to his typing.   

Brad let out a tigerish snarl and went to get himself a bottle of water out of the half size fridge. 

Nagi stuck his tongue out at his ‘superior’s turned back as Brad stomped past again. 

Brad flipped him the bird over his shoulder without looking back, and slammed the bedroom door.

Nagi sighed and stared at the laptop screen.  After two days, the giggle had worn off and now he was just stuck with the shit.  Hacking into the Esset personnel files had crashed his laptop twice and put him out of the game for hours while he repaired and reloaded things. Now he was certain that he’d left a trail a mile wide in hunting down the reverse hack and smashing it with a virus that kept it fighting for its life in a loop long enough to get in, get everything, save everything, cancel the virus, and flat line his own system _again_ to ditch the trail.  But he’d got the files and if _anyone_ asked WTF? he had an answer.  Class assignment.  Because—well, he _did_ have a class assignment, or at least he had when they’d crossed the time barrier.  And why not kill two birds with anti-aircraft missile?  Why hack the Americans when he could hack the school?  After all, _everyone_ hacked the Americans.  Boring.  

The bedroom door opened and the queen of tarts came out, looking like something left over behind a sofa from a post soccer match party, and scowled at him in passing.  “Thanks for ruining _my_ day,” he yanked open a cupboard and got a mug out.  He looked in the coffee carafe, hiked his hospital comfy pants now pajamas up and turned on the tap to rinse out the carafe.     

“Don’t mention it. After all the times you’ve ruined mine, I owed you one,” Nagi said sweetly. 

He managed to save the carafe, despite Schuldig’s lightening sling of it at him.

*     *     *

“Do not touch my sister,” Aya told Yuuji in the hospital hallway before they went in to her room.

“Why would I do that?” Yuuji asked.  “You’re the one who was dating the girl who looked like her.  Which is really creepy when you think about it.”

“I wasn’t dating her,”Aya hissed.  “I was just—,” he frowned.  “Being stupid,” he admitted.  “She took it as something else.”

“Proves you’re gay,” Yuuji looked down at him over the tops of his sunglasses.  “No strai-dar

“ _I am going to kick your ass_ ,” Aya threatened.  “And don’t call me ‘Aya’ in front of her.”

“You know, that is further creepiness, but we won’t go into that, because my mind just threw up a little in my brain pan,” Yuuji held up his hands in surrender.  “After you, _Fujimiya-kun_ ,” he opened the door and motioned. 

“Ni-chan,” Aya-chan smiled seeing him, then looked puzzled at the sight of the blond man behind him. 

Aya hadn’t mentioned Yuuji in his explanation specifically.  Or that he was—well, dating a _guy_.  “Aya, this is Sarazawa Yuuji.  He’s—um—, well, we were working together and—,” he stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked out the window.

“Nice to meet you finally, Aya-san,” Yuuji said easily. 

‘Ran’ shot him a wary look.  There was a _lot_ he wasn’t saying, which wasn’t what he was used to, not from charm-the-pants-off-them Kudoh.  Then he saw his 13-going-on-17 sister’s blush.  “He's my boyfriend,” he broke that bubble right smartly. 

Aya-chan's eyes widened, the same blue-brown as her brother's that read purple in most light.  Except hers were child large in her still 13 year old face.  “Ni-chan,” she looked up at him and he regretted his flash of jealousy.  He just hadn’t wanted her to get her hopes up, that was all.  His shoulders went narrow in awkward shifting.  If he dug his hands any deeper in his jeans’ pockets, they’d slide off his ass. 

“Thank you for—taking care of my brother,” she blushed even more now, eyes down, her hand fidgeting with the bed cover.

 _Shut up_ , Ran willed at Yuuji, who despite his protest earlier, must have got the message. No jokes, no double entendre, only that short of sly smile of his and a little gleam in his eyes.   _Gods, he was evil._   “The doctor said it will be a while before you recover from—everything,” he forced himself to calm down.  Not just shut everything off, but to calm the hell down.  Like a normal, sane, big brother.  Something he was really out of practice with. He got his eyes off the floor and looked at her. “And with everything going on outside Shinjuku, you'll be safe here.  But I am—going to go with Yuuji for a while.  We need to avoid that group for a while.  And--I'm not abandoning you, Aya-chan—but I told you everything else and we're sort of on the run.” Awkward. He realized he sounded like an idiot.  “It really is a good place, and you’ll need to get your strength back, therapy and everything.  And they aren't even charging us for your care.” The thought made his side itch again. 

Gods, Soyougi.  He'd have to make sure that _creature_ knew his sister was off limits.  This was all nonsense.  He couldn’t protect her from everything.  He knew that to her, what had happened was ‘just yesterday' and though their parents death had rightly saddened her, it wasn't like she was home having to face it head on daily.  Not that there _was_ ‘Home’ anymore,  and funny how suddenly he'd been thinking so clearly about their home and Mom and Pop again. Like he could just walk in and be there— _home_. “So, we're—um—going to Switzerland for a while.”

“Why Switzerland?” she asked blankly.

“Family and business connections,” Yuuji said.  “Hey, why don’t we sell the cars and wire the money to an account for your sister?” he looked at Ran.  “The kid says that’s how they manage outside supplies.  The money turns up as a back or forward transfer, but it goes through.”

“But I—,” Ran started then realized the situation.  “I—guess that would be okay.”  He was really trying not to bitch, but damn it, that was _his car_.  But if Yuuji was willing to give up the Seven, and that was a work of art, if you liked that old stuff, then his three year old Porsche was excess baggage as well.  And where the heck had Yuuji gotten a fancy car like that in the first place, anyway?

“So, you really are in trouble?” Aya-chan said.

“Sort of,” Ran said.  He had told her the very basics of it, but not wanting to alarm her, he’d played down a lot of it. 

“Don’t worry, Aya-chan,” Yuuji said, ( _Ran noted how sweetly he threw that in, and there was_ something _going on in the timbre of his voice, too. Was this the hypnosis trick?  He was going to kill him for trying it on his sister!)_  “Legally they can’t touch him, and there’s no extradition treaty if they try. _Il_ -legally, well, they don’t have the man power to come after us once we are out of the country.  Right now they are too busy covering their own butts from prosecution for running a private militia out of the Tokyo Police Department.”

“It must have been very hard for you, Ni-chan,” Aya looked up at Ran.

“It’s over now,” Aya found his own voice gruff.  “Better if we just look forward.”

Aya-chan smiled a slightly sad smile, “I will be alright, Ni-chan.  So, what will you do in Switzerland?”

He looked at Yuuji.  “Well, I hadn’t had time to think that out yet.”

“I have some personal matters to clear up, and then we will see from there,” Yuuji answered. 

Aya-chan had been watching them, and Ran felt his heart sink to realize she hadn’t gotten any less sharp in the time she had been unconscious.  “More stuff I shouldn’t know for my own good,” she said, quoting his letter.

“Yeah,” Ran agreed.

“Why don’t we fill your sister in on what’s happened in the world since she’s been indisposed?” Yuuji offered him an out.  “Who are your favorite idols, Aya-chan?” he made himself comfortable in the visitor’s chair and indicated with his hand for Ran to sit on the bottom of the bed. 

Ran sat with relief.  This was going like a Kritiker undercover mission, and he wasn’t going to get out of this one as easily as killing someone.  Unless he counted Yuuji, who was chatting his sister up like he’d known her all her life.  Him, he might ring his neck.

*    *    *

“Yuuji,” Brad said, stepping out of the other elevator just as he and Aya were getting out of one on the ground floor.  Schuldig trailed behind him, looking grim, eyes darting about the lobby for what ever was threatening him inside his head. 

“Hey, you,” Yuuji smiled ( _that soft, brilliant smile Aya noticed he_ always _had for Crawford.)_   “Doc warm his hands up first this time?”

“Mind your manners,” Brad warned coldly, then looked at Aya. “Your sister?”

“She’s okay,” Aya said. 

“Be nice,” Yuuji warned. 

“I am being—nice,” Both Crawford and Aya said in unison, then looked absolutely mortified at their impromptu chorus. 

Schuldig laughed.  “I will kill you later,” he told Yuuji, his eyes not smiling.  “I heard your sister freaking out from two floors below, Fujimiya,” he turned his evil toward the Japanese red head.  “My, my, you have surprised her.  Let me tell you all about it,” he cooed.

“Schuldig,” Brad said.  “Down.”

The German grinned at Aya, since this meant that he had to suffer without knowing what the heck she was thinking, which, Yuuji realized, was probably more annoying than being told. Christ what a night this was going to be.

“Don’t you have something better to do than be a shiny little ray of death on other people’s lives?” he asked the bratty telepath.

“He won’t let me kill everyone; this is my steam being let off,” Schuldig linked his arm in Brad’s loosely, keeping the required one foot away in public.  Immediately his countenance cleared up, like morphine kicking in. 

“So, do we leave any sooner?” Yuuji asked Brad.

“I caught hell for my diet, but other than that, one more check up, _after_ I’ve improved my eating habits, and perhaps we can go three days earlier.  It’s that, or he’ll put me in that big bird cage in his office,” Brad said sardonically.  “We may be here forever.  I don’t supposed you’ve seen Tot anywhere?  She’s running around with that android and the sewer creature.  I can’t help but wonder which is the worse influence on the other two.”

Yuuji felt his own sangfroid slip.  “You let her out on her own?”

Schuldig snorted. 

Brad side kicked at him, but was side stepped.  “No,” he said firmly. “Nagi got the bright idea that she would be safe with the other two.”

“I don’t know what the fuss is about. She’s not a prisoner or a hostage,” Schuldig said, patting his arm fondly.  “You’re just too used to relying on duct tape.”

“Why do you, of all people, stand up for her?” Yuuji asked as the three of them waited by the big double doors while Aya collected his sword from the front desk.  They had quite a bin of weaponry up there.  Mephisto did not allow hands to remain on weapons in his hospital.  Even if it meant removing them at the wrist.

“Nagi doesn’t need the grief,” Schuldig admitted.  “No one needs to see what is in that girl’s head, and if she stays happy, no one will ever have to find out, you understand?”

“The kid got stuffed in a trash compactor, I think he can take it,” Yuuji said. 

“No, he can’t,” Schuldig said even more quietly, his eyes dead serious.  “This is not for you to judge.  That girl is off limits, sane or insane.  You want to play Freud, you have your own toy.”

“I was just asking,” Yuuji smiled a little and backed off to show he was done with the conversation, then turned to watch Aya walking toward them, adjusting the sword belt on his hips. 

Just then as fate would have it _(a fine old cliché if there ever was one)_ the trio walked through the doors.  Soyougi saw Aya setting his sword in position, hand on hilt, and his hand went to his own. 

Doll grabbed his arm.  “Fujimiya-san, just leaving?” she said brightly. 

“Yes,” Aya gave Soyougi a cold look. 

“Uncle Brad, we had _so much_ fun!” Tot announced to the whole room.  “Soyougi-kun nearly got kidnapped and we beat the hell out of them!” she clapped her hands, giggling and bouncing on her ridiculously high platform doll baby shoes. 

Crawford wilted somewhat.   

“Told you so,” Schuldig said succinctly.   

“Aya,” Yuuji said, his eyes on the boyfriend from hell. “Let’s go.”

You could practically hear the little pocket watch chiming between the two swordsmen, cold narrowed eyes on each other, hands on hilts, weighing the desire to just go at it like tomcats in an alley against the danger of Mephisto’s staff pulling out the sedative rifles. 

“You’re both evenly matched,” Brad said curtly.  “The only result will be the both of you tiring yourselves out in public and getting laughed at.  Not a good thing for your reputation here in Shinjuku, Soyougi-san.”

“Crawford-san can see the future,” Doll tugged on his arm again.  “It’s true.  Mephisto-sama won’t be happy, either.” 

Soyougi backed down.  Aya took his hand off his sword.  The almost duel was over.  Being Japanese right down to the atoms, they bowed with stiff formality, then avoided looking at each other any more as they passed each other.

Three steps later, Aya ducked slightly, swiped at his ear and then glared at Schuldig. 

Yuuji frowned at the German.  He had to have been mentally tormenting Aya.  “When are you going to grow up?” he asked. 

“Never,” Schuldig said. 

“Can you read that thing’s mind?” Brad asked when both sets of doors had shut behind them.

“He’s fairly human,” Schuldig said. “Just not a lot of thinking going on.  Very single minded and focused. Almost tolerable, in fact.  Can we trade him?”

“No,” Yuuji stated. 

“Ha, even you wouldn’t be able to lure him away, anyway,” Schuldig taunted him.  “Sewer boy has the hots for doctor.”

“I hope he likes cold hands,” Brad said under his breath.

“Can we stop for cake?” Tot asked. 

“Tot, you have _four_ half eaten cakes in the refrigerator: No,” Brad said, exasperated.

“But all the pretty is gone,” she pouted.

“It’s _still_ cake,” he insisted. 

“But—,” she started to protest again. 

He rounded on her, “Tot, close your eyes and have Nagi feed you, and it will taste just as pretty, _okay_?” his hair had fallen into his glasses again and he was clenching his teeth. 

Tot blinked, her lips in a pouty ‘oh’, and so she said, “Oh! Tot likes that idea.  What do you think, Rabbi-chan?” she asked the stuffed toy. 

“Kill me now,” Schuldig murmured in a squeaky voice.  “Please, God, kill me now.”

Yuuji smacked him on the upper arm. 

“Nagi may kill you,” Schuldig warned Brad as he pulled himself together and smoothed his hair back. 

“Are you kidding?  Where were you at that age?” Brad said in a bitter half laugh. 

Schuldig was stunned.  “You’re right, it has a bright side, if you like that sort of thing. Why don’t you feed _me_ cake, _Uncle Brad?_ ” he purred, clinging to Brad’s arm now with both hands. 

“Because you would laugh at how ridiculous it is and choke to death,” Brad informed him, dead serious.

“And where were _you_ at that age?” Schuldig asked archly as they turned to walk across the open space to the hotel. 

“Madly, deeply, totally in love with his gun,” Yuuji said almost before Brad could open his mouth. 

“Well that explains a lot,” Schuldig said, rolling his eyes. 

“I was going to say fending off a fool, but there you go,” Brad sighed. 

Aya bumped Yuuji with his arm and then slipped his hand into Yuuji’s. 

Yuuji smiled at him, giving his hand a squeeze, then lacing their fingers in a more romantic grip.  He knew when he was in trouble again.  Damn it.

Tot ruined it.  Making Rabbi-chan do a little dance behind them, she chanted, “Aya-san and Yuuji-san sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-gee!”

    *      *      *

“First of all, we need a Smart Board,” Nagi said when they were all seated.  Instead he had a section of the suite’s barest wall taped up with print outs and the furniture rearranged to best advantage.  “I can not work under these conditions.”

“Oh, stop being such a ‘prodigy’,” Schuldig snarked. 

“I bet that sounded real smart in your head,” Yuuji commented.   

“It loses in translation,” the German admitted. 

“From insane to sanity,” Brad said, shifting to cross his leg over the other and tap on the arm of the sofa.  “Moving along,” he ordered. 

Nagi had scored a pointer by unscrewing the stick from the kitchen dustpan set.  He held this between both hands and paced in front of the wall.  “To start with, the heart of Esset is Rozencruez...”

Unfortunately, Schuldig started to sing, _“Make us worthy, make us proud, teach us not to be too  loud!  We’ll try to fit in with the crowd…”_ he trailed into silence at the gun poking him in the temple. 

“That is not _our_ school song,” Brad reminded him.  

“But I looked cute in the skirt!” Schuldig pouted. 

“No, our song is the one that you have to hum-mumble along to because if we told you the lyrics, _we’d have to kill you_!” Yuuji fell over laughing on the sofa he shared with Aya and Tot. 

Nagi’s knuckles whitened on the broom stick. 

“Let Nagi talk!” Tot ordered suddenly in her grown up voice, startling them all.  They all stared at her. 

She curled up behind Rabbi-chan on her end of the sofa and was silent. 

Brad cleared his throat and put his gun away, smoothing his jacket.  “Do continue.”

 


	3. Three

 

“What good is this going to do?” Brad let the paper work flop into his lap as he sat in bed that evening. 

“Are you going to sit up all night worrying?” Schuldig complained, and ran a hand up his thigh under the blankets.  He’d been half asleep, despite the lamp light.  

“Why not? I have nothing better to do for the next few days,” Brad complained right back at him.  “ _Pterodactyl watching_ was never on my list of big things to do before dying of boredom.”

“I am better to do,” Schuldig dug fingernails in just enough to be a warning.

Brad swatted at him.  “Stop that.”  He sighed and picked up the print outs again.  “I repeat, what good will any of this do?  Yes, it beats being hunted down and executed by the more moribund faction of the council, but still; _I don’t want to_ ,” he said sullenly.  “I don’t want to do anything other people tell me I should just because.  Because what?  Why am I always everyone’s else’s agenda-boy?” 

Schuldig rolled onto his back and laced his fingers on his chest with a sigh of his own, crossing one leg over Brad’s to keep the physical contact that was the barrier between him and Shinjuku’s tinnitus-like mental roar.  “What is worse?  Being hunted down and irritated at the most inopportune moments, or being the irritation.  Besides, you were born to be bossy and know it all, and you like it.  You are never happier than when you are seeing other people fall into your traps, you sadistic, miserable bastard,” he yawned and sighed sleepily.  It was nearly one a.m.

Brad looked down at him.  “You’ve been taking manipulation lessons from Yuuji.” 

“I think we had the same professor,” Schuldig said distractedly. “As your oh so obviously still madly in love with you ex-boyfriend pointed out, you are ‘The One’ for the two thirds of the council who want to reset the clock back to the good old days of beer, Wagner and measuring breasts for ‘scientific reasons’.  On certain holy days, they will put you on a chair with handles and carry you around for the little children to be cured of scrofula.”

“Funny, that wasn’t in your ass half an hour ago, how can you manage to pull it out now?” Brad gave him the ‘are you insane?’ look _that_ pronouncement deserved.

Schuldig glared up at him, “There is no talking with you when you are dead set on being so mean!” He turned over with a flop and curled up, keeping just the bottom of his foot along Brad’s calf.    

Brad rested an arm on the blanket covered shoulder as if it _were_ an arm rest, and read some more. “I hate it when you’re right.” He growled finally. 

“So, you admit you’re mean?” Schuldig asked grumpily.  “Now apologize.”

“No, I _mean_ I don’t want to be hunted down by shit heads with a stick up their ass over my getting away with outright murder and depriving them of their various promised rewards; _which I happen to know_ entailed being executed as soon as they were no longer needed, but convince _them_ of that.  Sour grapes, the lot of them.  Two thirds,” he chuckled suddenly, causing Schuldig to look up at him over his shoulder.    

“I _will_ line the council up and shoot every third one of them.  Problem solved,” Brad said cheerfully. 

*     *     *  

“Are we up too early?” Tot asked, sitting down at the little table. 

Nagi turned from whisking eggs then blinked in mild surprise.  “I guess Crawford couldn’t sleep.  This hospital thing has thrown his timing off.  Didn’t you sleep well?” He wondered at her still being in pajamas and bare faced, no contacts and her hair ties half undone.  Part of him thought she was so cute. The other part wondered if this was the beginning of her letting it all go to hell now that she had a boyfriend.  He sometimes wondered at the amount of testosterone in the air wasn’t affecting him the same way that ex-Olympic athlete had been turned by all the progesterone on that creepy reality show. 

She put her chin on her hand and looked up at him, her other hand cradling Rabbi-chan on the table in front of her.  ( _‘Nope,’ he decided.  ‘CUTE!’)_ “Sort of.  Tot is a little scared.  This is Tot’s home, even this place.  Switzerland is a foreign country.  People will look funny and act weird.”

Nagi turned back to the eggs so she wouldn’t see the insane look his face must be sporting at that remark.  “It is kind of scary.  But just be yourself.  You don’t _have_ to fit in in other places, we’re Japanese, they don’t expect us to.  The bath rooms are a little weird, though.  All manual.”      

“Nagi-kun, are the girls in Switzerland very pretty?” she sounded shy now.  

“Yeah,” he said.  “But they aren’t you, so that’s nothing to worry about, either.” He poured a portion of the eggs into the frying pan, and the rest on a saran wrapped dinner plate, rolling it around to spread the mixture thin.  “Totto is Totto, and I doubt even a very few of them can kill a man with their bare hands in the super efficient way Totto can.” 

She giggled, “Nagi-kun!” she protested happily while he was programming the microwave. 

_Girls._ ‘Never forget that the female of the species _is the species’_. He wondered though, what she would make of all those tall boys with their exotic good looks.  The guys so many of the anime heroes were based on.  He was already shorter than her, even without the platform shoes she lived in.  He glanced under the table.  Yep, she was wearing them. 

Brad was right. Love sucks. Then you make omurice. 

She’d made him think, though.  What on earth were things going to be like?  Rozencreuz ran on arrogance and intimidation at the best of times.  In that manner it was like the majority of boarding schools, though the teachers and professors were the ones doing most of the bullying.  Still, there was nothing like what had been going on at Koua.  It seemed like the people in charge there wanted nothing from the attending students, even the clever,  vicious ones that carried out their orders.  And why train students to behave _that_ way?  It was clear most of the elite S class were nothing more than psychotics who killed for the fun of it.  It was like keeping a pack of rabid dogs for the entertainment of seeing them attack the neighbors and each other.  Sooner or later the authorities would smack that down, and had.  Like Takatori, the leadership at Koua had gone off the res. 

Things were different at Rozencreuz, where forming alliances and team work were as much part of the training as a season of Survivor.  You took care of your team, even if you hated their guts.  And yes, most schools didn’t have a week of open season on Seniors, when scores were settled.  But if you couldn’t survive that, you didn’t need to be alive.  The answer was simple.  Don’t make enemies in the first place.  

No, the problem with Rozencruez, _and_ Esset, would be the hardliners.  The ones who had been ambitious enough to buy into the Three and their insane mumbo-jumbo plan to rule the world.  The ones who had come out in the past five years, the truly vicious teams who had been formed to back those who were to have been given territories that were long standing hell holes.   

Nagi took the plate out of the microwave and put a couple of large spoonful’s of fried rice mixed with more scrambled egg on the thin egg, then folded it over and put it back into heat through.  What had they been thinking, he wondered.  Then again, when you got that old and ridiculously out of touch with reality, who knew?     

He took the plate out again and squeezed a ketchup heart on the rice filled omelet, dabbing N + T in the middle.   

*     *      *

“I have to say good-bye to my sister,” Aya said, checking himself in the mirror.  “I want to spend the rest of the day with her.  Just us.”

Yuuji debated smacking him.  “Throw a boot at me and yell scat, why don’t you?”

Aya grinned at him. 

Yuuji did not shudder.  Aya was oh so easy on the eyes, but yeah, not adroit at expressions beyond ‘glare’ and ‘scowl’, and very yeah, that face he made during sex, but not ‘cute’.  This toothy grin thing was something he had not been prepared for.  Maybe should conk the sister on the head again.

“So what are you going to do all day?” Aya asked, turning to look at him. 

“Contemplate my sins,” Yuuji said.  “What ever you do, _do not_ take her for a walk in the park.”

“I suppose you’ll go hang around with _them_?” Aya asked in a reserved tone. 

“There are a lot of decisions to be made,” Yuuji reminded him. “This isn’t just going in and killing a few people and then running away to see if by chance one of our faces shows up on the news.  This is a coup, and there will be a mess to clean up afterward.”

“I get that,” Aya said firmly.  “I am not totally stupid.”

“Take your pretty self off and annoy your sister,” Yuuji dismissed him.  “Poor girl.  Must be embarrassing to be so plain when her brother is such a gorgeous thing he has to act like a barbarian to prove he’s a man.”

Aya gave him the deadpan face.  “Shut up,” he said and headed for the door. 

“No kiss?”

“No ending up back in bed from your evil manipulative what ever it is affecting me,” Aya said, and shut the door.

Yuuji pursed his lips, then sighed.  “O-kay.  Well then.  I’ll just go bother someone else with my evil manipulative what ever it is.”

    *     *     *

Schuldig opened the door just for the pleasure of shutting it in Yuuji’s face. Yuuji knocked again in exasperation. “Come on, I know you knew it was me, telepathic jerk.”

The door was yanked open.  “Who’s in temper?” he leaned on the door frame, blocking entry and looked Yuuji up and down sullenly, then peeped past him into the empty hall.  “Where is your re-prehensile tail?”

“Saying good-bye to his sister, and don’t make up new words to be insulting, it’s just wrong.  Besides you said you wouldn’t call him names anymore,” Yuuji gave the door a little kick.  “Move.”

Schuldig looked even more annoyed and stepped back, pulling the door open with ill grace.  “He needs to come to these meetings, too, you know.”

“I know why _you_ want him here,” Yuuji headed to the fridge and helped himself to a couple of little bottles of scotch.  On second thought, he grabbed one more, then went to find a tall glass. 

“Yuuji,” Brad sat on the sofa in slacks and a shirt, sleeves rolled up, the laptop open on the coffee table in front of him.  “What are you doing?”

“Good question,” he dropped into the opposite sofa and put the glass on the table, opening the first little bottle and dumping it into the glass. 

Brad frowned at him. 

He poured the second bottle in.

“Booze for lunch.  Charming,” Schuldig said.  “Are you going to talk, or do I have to crawl inside your head and see all the creepy things?” It wasn’t quite clear he meant creepy to whom. 

The third bottle was glugged dry.  Yuuji set it down next to the others with a smack and picked up the glass to half drain it, then sat back with the glass cradled in his hands in his lap.  “Much better,” he smothered a belch.  “When the hell are we going to get out of here?  Can’t you watch your eating habits until the doc lets you go?”

“I’m not going anywhere until I stop getting these sudden stabbing pains,” Brad stated. “If I have a relapse or something pops open, I’m going to make sure that—arrogant Doctor gets his nose rubbed in his mistake!”

“Hypochondriac.  Lay off the coffee,” Yuuji looked at him with dull eyes.  The alcohol burned his stomach nicely and got rid of the feeling that at least one of many somethings had been missing in his life.  “I think I’m having a relapse.  One minute I’m fine and the next, I can’t seem to pull myself out of it.  Is Aya triggering it?  Or is the potted plant in the hallway sending out waves of despair so I commit suicide and fertilize it?” he added bitterly after another huge swallow.

“Shinjuku,” Schuldig stated dryly.  “It could well be.  Do you have a strange compulsion to arrange flowers?”

Yuuji snorted.  “Hell, no.  But I keep having this dream I’m strangling someone with my bare hands, and that when they are finally dead, _this_ will be over.”

“Strange,” Brad agreed.  “For one thing, you know the golden rule: always use gloves.  I think I know what you need.”

“ _No_ ,” Schuldig looked down at him. 

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Brad protested.  “We could all use a good fuck. This plan has been planned to death.  I have my list, Nagi has his list, and bonus, the kids are out exploring god knows where, and I am so damned bored.”

Schuldig looked at Yuuji, annoyed as hell.  “Funny god damned way to cure brain washing after affects if you ask me,” he stated bitterly.

“I could use a cuddle,” Yuuji admitted.  “But I’m not exactly feeling all that energetic.  This is what comes of telling Aya the truth.  Now I want to just pack up and go.” He sipped his drink this time. 

“Classic avoidance,” Schuldig said.  “Fight it.  Go drag him away from his sister and bang him in a broom closet or something.  That will be ten cents.”

“Schuldig,” Brad said, a mild warning, then looked at Yuuji again.  “Is that all?  You feel too close now and he has something to hold over you?”

Yuuji pouted slightly, turning the glass in his hands.  “Maybe,” he admitted. 

Brad got up and walked around the coffee table to sit down beside him.  He put an arm across Yuuji’s shoulders and crossed a leg, half turned toward him, looking at him.  “You really are maudlin, you know that?  That’s why that lunatic was able to get into your head so easily and warp all your wiring.  It is _not_ just your pheromones,” he gave him a little shake. “You are a fine man.  Intelligent, athletic, a sweet and loving person, and very, very handsome.  I’m sure your little boyfriend loves you all for yourself.”

Yuuji met his eyes.  “Mom, why are you shape shifting this late in life?”

“I am going to kill you,” Brad said, deadly serious. 

“Now you really do sound just like her,” Yuuji warned, and finished his drink.  “I think I’ll pass on the good fuck.”

“Well it certainly explains your strange obsession with me,” Brad frowned.

Yuuji elbowed him.  “Stop that.  My mother is nothing like you.  And no making any other remarks.”

“Made you smile,” Brad teased lovingly.

“Go to hell,”  Yuuji looked in his glass, then set it down.  He looked at Brad seriously.  “What happened?  How did all this happen?  How did we get here in our lives?”

“There is this thing called breathing,” Schuldig said.  “And in between breaths, shit happens, and there _you_ are.”

Brad closed his eyes and shook his head.  “ _Schuldig_ , behave,” he pushed his hair back from his forehead and looked up at the red head.   

“Jah, I know, the one decision you never seem to want to make,” Schuldig complained.  “But my head hurts and maybe the moral high ground is not as nice a cure as wallowing in perversion.”

“What the hell is he saying?” Yuuji was buzzing from the booze. 

“We’re going skinny dipping,” Brad informed him.

“Now _you’ve_ started doing it,” Yuuji winced. 

Brad pushed himself up off the sofa.  “I’d help you up, but I’m scared something will rip, even though the damned doctor insists it won’t happen.”

Schuldig was glaring at Yuuji, arms crossed.  “I hate you.”

“You hate everyone,” Brad reminded him yet again.  “Come on, Sarazawa, we’ll put you back together.”

“If he tries to strangle me, I will nail his nuts to the headboard,” Schuldig threatened. 

“Kinky,” Yuuji said, getting up to trail along behind Brad to the bedroom.  He miss stepped a little and caught his balance. “Whoah, I’m out of practice with the drinking thing.”

“Better the booze than the cigarettes and the damned women,” Brad said, stepping back to catch him by the arm.  He leaned in to breath into Yuuji’s ear.  “I’ve missed this.”

 Yuuji half turned and put his arms around him, giving him a smothering fervent kiss. 

“No starting without me, you cheaters,”  Schuldig caught the back of Yuuji’s jeans waistband and yanked him away and stumbling backward into the bedroom.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 


	4. Four

 

“I think we proved your guts _aren’t_ going to just pop open,” Yuuji held Brad in bed, kissing his shoulder and neck. “And—mmm—you’re so very much alive,” he pulled him a little closer, smiling, snuggling.

They were sprawled on the bed, a compromising photo in the making;  Schuldig, embarrassed at his appetites, now hiding beside Brad to get away from the addictive blond, Brad stuck in the middle, Yuuji still a bit too possessive despite his ‘ex’ status.  Michael Angelo might as well have slapped this scene on a cathedral ceiling and labelled it Sin as a damned good example; all that male flesh and muscle tangled in caresses.  But more or less, it was simply love and companionship, lit by sparks of lust, dealt with by the equipment at hand.  

“I will believe that when I can use my talent properly and _not_ see it happening,” Brad complained.  He shrugged his shoulders to ease up the head lock a little, rather than say ‘you’re choking me’ aloud.  He turned a little to look into the hazel green eyes, nose to nose.  “Knowing you, you haven’t thought one second about being blown to bits, but I find myself a bit fragile still.”

Yuuji smiled.  “Because I wasn’t.  We need to find out who the hell came up with that idea in the first place.”

“And do what?  Reward them for helping you escape, or kill them for the grief?” Brad laughed softly.

“Hmm, pin the medal on in front of the firing squad, or award it posthumously? Decisions, decisions.  We _have_ to discus business, you know, for expense account sake.  I’d hate to be telling yet another lie.”

“We left Dr. Koreshige alive,” Schuldig reminded, turning back to put an arm across Brad’s chest, subtly staking his territory.  “Just suffering from dementia.  I might not be able to pick his brain for anything.  And you put paid to the woman.  Shuuichi Takatori committed suicide, so we have no idea of who might have known why you were recruited.  Does it matter?  Everyone got what they deserved involved on this side.”

“Fair enough,” Yuuji said.  “Trust a telepath to know his way around Karma.”

“Oh, the things I have in mind for _you_ ,” Schuldig threatened. 

“Schuldig,” Brad warned wearily.  “Get over it.”    

The red head pouted and snuggled closer on his side. 

Yuuji held on a bit tighter.

Schuldig glared at him and tightened _his_ grip.

“Gentlemen,” Brad announced sharply.  “Deep breaths, back down, or I get the gun and start shooting.”

He felt the tension in the arms and legs around him loosen.  “It never occurred to me until I started interrogating Mephisto,” he said to Yuuji. “You both have had strangely similar circumstances, at least at the onset.  What name was the ticket bought under?  The one you used to come to Tokyo?”

“Paid for in cash, but half soaked in blood, bought at some sketchy tourist shop in Cairo where they had no description of the purchaser, or a security camera.  I’m still a bit wonky about that time.  I never thought there would be a disadvantage of working off leash. The Embassy had them let me through; no reason not to.  Hapless tourist, caught in the blast, ticket replaced.  Whoever grabbed my wallet probably didn’t want to mess with the blood, and I had the diplomatic boot behind me. You know the Japanese, we take care of our own in the big outside, no losing face.  Besides, who knows, maybe I _wanted_ to come to Tokyo.”

““Damn,” Brad said. “I was hoping we had a lead.  You do tend to get your way over the unsuspecting,” he smiled wryly.

“Amnesia, then brain washing,” Schuldig leaned up on one elbow to look at Yuuji. “A nice blank slate.  Except you had the watch and your physical training.  You were using it before you started to remember anything.”

“I got knocked off a bridge on a mission one night.  Next thing I knew, I was hanging by my watch.  Strange how that came back to me, but nothing else. Not even when I saw you in that hotel,” he looked down at Brad with a frown of consternation.  “It did trigger the cycle again, though, now that I think about it.  Nightmares, drinking, three packs a day,” he shuddered.   

“I didn't think it could be you,” Brad admitted.  “Not until I saw that watch.  I thought maybe it was just a doppelganger, a look alike enough to have me seeing you.  I couldn’t let myself believe it,” he turned to slip a hand behind Yuuji's head and draw him close for a kiss.

“Shall I get a violin?” Schuldig asked snidely.

Brad let go of Yuuji to turn and grab the red head, wrestling him into a position where he could give him a few good smacks on the butt, leaving him laughing and ouching about it at the same time.  Brad held him down on his back by his forearms, straddled across his thighs.  “Give up.”

“Never,” those eyes sparkled up at him. 

He leaned down to catch peach pink lips in his. 

“I’m thinking lunch,” Yuuji said after a minute of this.

Brad broke it off with a look of consternation.  “Damn it, I am hungry.”

Schuldig sighed.  “Me, too.  So much for romance.” 

“You want romance, I’ll hold your hair for you the next time you get food poisoning.” Brad crawled off the bed.

“Do you have to ruin my lunch reminding me of that?”

Yuuji smiled at them and got off his own ass.  “Let me at the shower first, and I’ll toddle on back to my room and leave you two alone.”

“Why bother?” Schuldig looked at him over his shoulder from where he was getting some fresh under things out of the suitcase on the dresser.  “In this place, the more backup the better.  Who knows what’s going to be in the prawn salad if the chef isn’t paying attention.”

Yuuji hesitated, parsing out the message being tossed at him, then let it go with an easy smile and no comment.  They got along well enough.  With Schuldig, the snarl and growl and threats were all for show, maintaining an emotional personal space a telepath could only imagine.  If he really wanted you dead, all it would take was a flick of thought.  He wondered how many there were like Schuldig left at Rozencreuz.  And how sane they were.

*     *     * 

On the way back from the restaurant, Yuuji had found a book to read at a stall set up on the main drag.  An English language thriller.  He was wondering what the hell the author had been doing for drugs when Aya finally came in.

He seemed surprised to find Yuuji there in the afternoon, but pleased.  Pleased enough to walk on light feet over to the arm chair and pounce on him for a hug and a kiss while sitting in his lap. 

Yuuji held him so he wouldn’t slide off.  The attack had been a bit awkward and he shifted a leg under Aya’s weight to do a better job of supporting it.  “You weigh a ton,” he complained. 

Aya kissed him again.  “What are you reading?” he took the book from him and flipped through it.

“Bar-be-cue starter,” Yuuji took and tossed the book on the bedside table. “Either that or red neck toilet paper, I haven’t decided yet.  Someone was over excited, all the typos are in the sex scenes.”

Aya looked into his eyes, “Did you go over there?”

“Of course I did.  We had mad three way sex, then lunch and argued politics,” Yuuji said.  “Never argue politics with a German.”

Aya’s eyes widened, then he smacked him on the shoulder.  “Stop joking about things like that.”

Yuuji held him even closer. “Jealous, hot head?”

“I am _not_ a hot head,” Aya growled curtly. 

Yuuji arched an eyebrow, remembering how much Aya hated anything to do with Hidaka.  “Your sister?”

Aya calmed, distracted into a slight frown.  “Still in shock, I think.  We mostly stuck to the future for conversation.  She’s very interested in the hospital.  She always was looking for something philanthropic to do.”

“Philanthropic,” Yuuji said teasingly. “Big word.  I bet she taught you that one.”

Aya glared at him.  “And the plot to take over the world?” he asked sarcastically.

“Not the _whole_ world, just the fiddly bits we like best,” Yuuji held him a bit tighter.  “How would you like Rio Di Janeiro?  You’d look adorable dressed up like a Vegas show girl for carnival.”

GLARE. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Not really,” Yuuji said, amused at his reaction.  “I have this strange urge to see your skinny, blinding white ass in a sparkly thong and tassels on your nipples. There must have been something in the salad after all.”

Aya shoved at him, despite the fact that it meant he had the reverse reaction of nearly dumping himself on the floor.  “Weirdo!” he got up, untangling himself from his half fall. 

“Still mentally picturing it,” Yuuji warned. 

“Stop that!” Aya put his arms across his t-shirted chest, hiding his nipples despite the coverage. 

“Feathers everywhere,” Yuuji persisted.  “And loops of gold chain with bells on them.  Come on, Aya, shift it, let's see your samba moves.”

“Go to hell!” Aya laughed in protest.

Yuuji chased him down on the bed and kissed him.   

    *     *     *

The door to the office opened and a harried looking man walked in just as the head master’s secretary warned him on the intercom. “Herr Chancellor, the situation is growing impossible!”

“Yes, Gersten,” the head master of Rozencreuz droned, unconcerned.  “I heard the megaphones.  I ordered them shot.  Why has this not been done?”

The professor looked even more harassed.  “There is some resistance as to why this should be done.”

The Chancellor blinked.  “ _What?_ ” his voice was strained. 

“Herr Chancellor, two of the students involved have siblings also attending who are convinced this is not their normal thinking and class mates who claim this is nothing like them.  The current leader of the graduate student corps, Obergefreiter Martz, a B level sensitive, is convinced it is a puppet master.  Why else would _our_ students suddenly start behaving in such an—insane manner!” he threw up his hands.  “The contention is that if we shoot this batch, another will be taken over, and so on.  In no time the ranks will be decimated.” At this he paled and stood still in his tracks.  “Herr Chancellor, we will destroy ourselves,” he looked in shock at the thought.  “Someone is out to destroy us!  First The Three, now this!” he clasped and clenched his hands together and started to pace the carpet. 

The Chancellor looked just as shocked.  A frown deepened on his already frown lined face.  “How many students have been caught up with this so far?” This idiocy had been snowballing for weeks now.

“At least forty or more, Herr Chancellor,” Gersten looked up.  “As you know,” he reminded deferentially, “because of the current situation with the unexpected demise of The Three, the Council has put a moratorium on executions without trial.  And the parents complain,” he added as an after thought.  “At the most—tear gas?  Perhaps something to knock them unconscious?”

“The Council has far too much on their hands right now to deal with a stupid student fad.  Naturally, they would turn their heads to better things until this has become too much to ignore, and then possibly too late to correct,” the Chancellor said thoughtfully.  “Yes, this is too convenient.  Our students know very well they are not to concern themselves with such ridiculous nonsense.  Gersten, there is only one creature I can think of who is capable of this sort of thing.”

“He is not here, Herr,” Gersten said.  “Martz has confirmed this.  Nor any other A level telepath that we know of.”

The Chancellor looked grim and stood up.  “Shoot them anyway.  Switch to tranquilizers; a 24 hour dose.  Call the parents and have them come pick their little monsters up and evacuate the school of the underclass for now.  NO, that would leave the elite to be taken over.  Evacuate the entire school, shut it down,” he started gathering and sorting papers, alternately stuffing them in his old fashioned brief case and locking them up in the drawers in his desk. “Shut the whole place down.  Disperse the students, and set the automated security as soon as the graduate corps are out.  We will take away their puppets _and_ their stage and see what happens.  Tell Martz he’s a good boy and give him a pat on the head and a medal or something, but he’s to get his butt in gear.  And arrest all the telepaths of any level.  If they aren’t guilty, at least they will be on hand to deal with this ‘puppet master’.”

    *     *     *

“You will live,” Mephisto said, with his usual annoyingly smug smile. 

Brad tied his tie again.  “Other than that?”

“You are in perfect health for the most part.  There is the blood pressure, but your veins are in good condition for your age.  Most of your problem seems to be that temper of yours.  You could go vegan a few days a week, take up meditation, and it would improve matters.”

“The hell it would,” Brad said with a mild snort.  “And the physical part of my talent?”

Mephisto swivelled from side to side in his chair.  “Like your telepathic friend, there is a system of blood vessels throughout a section of your brain that is unusual.  My suggestion is that this allows your brains to process more information more quickly than the normal human brain.  Whether this is the cause of your talent, or the result of it, I don’t know. I would like to find out, though,” he smiled in that unnervingly sexy way. 

“Keep your scalpels to yourself,” Brad slid down off the exam table. 

“Alas, if the patient is unwilling,” Mephisto put up his elegant hands, then stood up. 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Brad said dismissively. 

Mephisto gave him that bemused look again and bowed before leaving him in the exam room, shutting the door.

Brad narrowed his eyes at the door venomously.  He did not like being outranked on the ‘palpable danger’ charts.  “Nurse,” he snapped.

“Mr. Crawford,” the voice said.  “You have been discharged.”

He slid on his suit jacket and fixed his cuffs before buttoning the front of it.  “I wonder if you would consider taking over the running of any other institutions.”

A moment passed.  “I have no desire to be head hunted, Mr. Crawford.  My place is here.”

“Isn’t it tempting to think of other duties? I know that if you take a slip of paper from a shrine, signed by the head priest in the name of the god, and put it in a household alter anywhere in the world, the god of the shrine it is from will be in contact with that household.”

“ _Mr. Crawford_ ,” she started to say with a tone of reserved discouragement. 

“You are not fooling anyone; either of you.  That creature from the sewer proves it,” Crawford told the ceiling.  “You have my phone number.” 

There was a huff, a click, and silence. 

He shot the ceiling another look.  Still trying to pull that one.  He shrugged his shoulders and made a mental note to pick up his gun at the front desk.    

 


	5. Five

 

Near sunset in Tokyo, the wheels of a slightly battered white rental van (six dents in the top where the spider mutant had landed on it) touched the unbroken tarmac and was _not seen_ by the military security posts it cruised past.  Once past the last military gaurd post and on the main street, it’s passengers all breathed the cliche sigh of relief. 

Nagi was the first to speak, letting go of the stress of having to use his powers to smooth the way.  Vans full of people were heavy.  “Moss Burgers. Now,” he stated.

Brad nodded, inclined to forgive the ‘order’ part of the request.  Then with a slight trepidation, he used his talent.  What the--?  “We’ve lost two months!”

“Two months,” Yuuji said, trying not to miss a street light change and putting the brakes on just in time to screech the tires. 

“Ooo, the thought the woman in the next car just gave you, you bleached headed noisy punk,” Schuldig said. “Hello normal world.  I could kiss the concrete.  My poor head feels like blood pudding, but I can think again.  No more alien crap.  Brad?”

“Two months,” Brad repeated, stunned that the old fairy-land legends were true. 

“The moon changes!” Nagi realised.  “We didn’t calculate the moon changes, only the time of day.  That must be how we ended up over 12 years in to the future.”

Brad thought about this.  “That might explain why my talent was sped up so fast while in the anomaly.  It sped up because I had to catch up.”

“I hate to say it, but that makes some crazy sense,” Yuuji agreed.  “Do us all a favor and try not to make it sound too interesting to the Council; they’ll want to poke about in there anyway.”

“Do not tell _me_ how to fudge a report,” Brad growled at him. 

“Sorry!” Yuuji said with mild consternation. “I was _just saying_.”

“You two and your history,” Schuldig grumbled from the back and looked across at Aya, who glowered darkly, hand resting on the hilt of his katana.  Curious, the sense of relief coming off the younger man despite his angry face.  Schuldig wanted to pry it apart, but sensed the shark-like presence of that scary-ass alter ego just beneath the surface, triggered by the possibility of being shot by the military for trespassing in the barrier around Shinjuku.  

He decided from the over all impression he was picking up, Fujimiya had finally achieved closure for his survivor’s guilt.  This didn’t sit right, and he would have to pull it to pieces before he could adjust to it. However, not until he had had some food and a change of clothing, and shook the lingering discomforts of the mental barrage from Shinjuku off his brain.  Right now, he felt so light headed, his mind might drift off on its own. 

Still, it did amuse him that Fujimiya had even more reason to turn them into mincemeat now.  That did a little something to assuage his own jealousy. 

    *     *     *

Naturally anything a telepath was involved in was smoothed out.  They re-secured their living arrangements without a glitch.  With the whole haunted house thing, Sarazawa was installed in a flat further down the building Schwarz had moved into.  “Too bad we can’t land mine the hallway,” Schuldig grumbled on opening the door late the next morning.

“Munitions expert,” Yuuji reminded.

“Oh shut up,” Schuldig let him into the apartment, Fujimiya and all. “Now why are you here?  Can’t you take a day off from being annoyingly ‘friendly’.”

“No, I’m making sure Crawford isn’t weaselling his way out of facing the council,” Yuuji went over to bend over and scrutinize the screen on the laptop over Brad’s shoulder. He poked at it.  “Typo.”

“Rough draft,” Brad countered, slapping his hand away and typing furiously. 

“What’s _your_ excuse?” Schuldig asked Aya, who was not wearing his sword, a sane move since such things were actually outlawed in Japan.

“Nothing better to do,” Fujimiya countered with smug finality, and went to sit down in an arm chair.  He watched Yuuji like a crazy stalker.

Oh, this was a whole new chess game.  Schuldig shut the door and flipped the lock with a sigh.  He didn’t want to play games, he wanted to flop around the place in his scruffies and maybe veg out in front of a movie. 

“Schuldig, get that,” Brad said as he turned away from the door and took just two steps.

A knock came. 

“Precog,” Schuldig muttered under his breath, and turned to check.  “Oh, oh, the concierge,” he opened the door.  “Good day, Kinju-san, lovely weather, neh?”

The middle aged and fighting it every step of the way woman smiled and bowed a little, and babbled yes, yes it was, welcome back, you gave us a little scare regarding your rent, etc., then finally got down to business just about the moment he was going to pull out his gun and shoot her.

She took a small package out of her carry basket.  “This was sitting in the office for the past month.  Sorry to not have mentioned it last night, but you know how it is.  And look, how funny, someone set the meter wrong for the date stamp,” she pointed to it.  

He looked at it.  It was a bit battered but not dented, a four by four inch square box, somewhat unnecessarily also wrapped in what looked like thick brown paper.  The fancy kind hand poured, not rolled out, with little bits of silky plant fiber in it.  “Thank you, Kinju-san,” he hesitated to take it, then forced himself to hide the impression of reticence.  He smiled at her, remembering not to bare his teeth, which was still a bit of a taboo with the older generation, and bowed his thanks, taking a minute more to shoo her from the door with small talk and shut it.  “Brad,” the stress showed in his normally low, rough voice as a tendency toward the squeaky range.  “There is a huge nothing in this box.” He didn’t want to take even one step from the genkan.

Brad saved his file and got up from the table, walking across the living room space to look at it, then plucked it away.  He looked at the return address.  No name, but the address and the date on the post mark was enough.  “Hmm,” he smiled with secretive pleasure.

“What is it?” Yuuji was right behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“Back off, nosy,” Brad elbowed him gently.  Something went snap along the timeline, it was _that_ perceptible, and the box felt—right now—was the only way to describe it.  

Schuldig fell back a little, bracing himself on the door from falling, it startled him that badly.  “No.”

“Oh, yes,” Brad smirked.  He tossed the box lightly and caught it, then looked at Schuldig, tapping it in the air at him.  “Surely you didn’t want to become bogged down in boring old academia, considering how ungrateful they were to have you in the first place.” He turned away, toying with the little box.

“What the hell have you done?” Schuldig followed him back to the table where the laptop was. 

“We will see,” Brad set the box on the table, making no move to open it. 

“Gott im himmel, _you drive me crazy!_ ” Schuldig accused.  “First this,” he pointed at Yuuji, “Now this!” a finger stabbed at the box.  “I did not sign on for this sort of crazy bullshit!  Killing people, conniving political upheavals, taking over a few conglomerates, maybe even blowing things up now and then; the day to work a day normal for Esset, but not this supernatural crap!”

Brad looked up at him patiently.  “Does that feel better now?”

“Yes,” Schuldig pulled out a chair and sat down with a thump, frowning.  “Why did you do this?” he whined. 

“Does it bother you that much?” Brad arched a brow.

“No, but the hole is there,” he pointed to the box. “The big _‘it is not there and so obviously not there’_ is going to drive me mad!”

“I doubt that,” Brad said, adjusting his glasses and finding his place in his file again.  “If it’s not there, it can’t do anything to you,” his tone was mild and mocking.

“But it is there!”

“No, it’s not,” Brad said. “You said so yourself.”

Schuldig growled at him, narrow eyed.  “Yes, it _is_.  It _isn’t_ there, that is the point. _It is not there_.”

“Oh, someone has to stop this before I get a headache,” Yuuji said, trying to grab the box. 

Brad deflected his arm with a three finger karate poke.  “Don’t you dare.  That doesn’t get opened until the proper moment.”

Yuuji shook his arm to get rid of the stinging pain and frowned.  “And you’ll know when this is?”

“Naturally,” Brad said, intent on his report.  “I can’t think of anything better to do than unleash a rule and order obsessed entity on that place.”

“Only _you_ could cause chaos with rule and order,” Yuuji stated.

“We’ll see,” Brad looked at him.  “After all there are no guarantees the entity will ‘take’.  So leave the box alone, both of you,” he reached to move it closer. 

“You believe in Shinto?” Aya asked quietly in his resonant voice, damn near startling them with the reminder of his own presence.

Brad looked over at him. 

“A rule and order obsessed entity.  The nurse from Mephisto’s hospital, it was a Kami, wasn’t it?” Aya said flatly.

“I believe so, yes,” Brad said.  “How else can the hospital be explained?  Both Mephisto and Det. Kabane said the capital building had developed a grudge toward people.  Then Mephisto took it over, gave it a new purpose and it became aggressively protective again.  If that isn’t a Kami, what is it?”

“You can’t just open the box.  You will need to do the ritual correctly.”

Brad considered this.  “Then you do it,” he said. 

Aya blinked. Then shrugged. “It will take some arranging and money.  Shinto priests do not come cheap.”

“Deal with it,” Brad said, irritated.

Aya frowned.  “It would be best if we knew which shrine put the original blessings on the building.  But it might have been destroyed in the Earthquake.”

“Yuuji,” Brad looked up at him darkly. 

Yuuji gave him an ‘oh really?’ look.  Then sighed and turned to go and collect Aya. “You heard the man; we will deal with it.”

   *     *     *

“Where do we start looking?” Yuuji asked in the hallway.

Aya looked at him.  “You’re the detective.”

“No, I was told I was detective,” Yuuji reminded him.  “Shinto isn’t my thing, it’s yours.  How do we go about looking up who did what?”

Aya thought for a moment.  “We could try the biggest shrine in Tokyo and go from there.  The Guuji would have some idea of who would have been in charge of that area.”

“We’d better get a rental if we’re going to be running around Tokyo,” Yuuji said, heading to the elevator.  “And some hair dye,” he grumbled, fluffing his hair.

“No,” Aya said, following him.  “I refuse.  If anyone left from Kritiker spots us, we will deal with it, but I’m not going to hide and run.”

“We have no idea if our faces are on wanted posters, yet,” Yuuji said, pulling out his phone.  “Damn it, I forgot to ask Brad what he meant about Kabane telling him something had happened.  Yes, it’s me, and yes, I am still in the hall way,” he stated when Brad answered.  “Are we posted by the police?”

Brad laughed. “Oh, I forgot.  Sorry,” he said with mock innocence.

“Stop joking around; are we or not?” Yuuji stated tersely. 

There was silence as Brad checked.  “No.  Whatever triggered that in the future has faded.  Unless you do something to bring it up again, you should be fine.  I doubt your little buddy in Weiss will have the audacity to rat either of you out.”

“Damn it,” Yuuji said.  “Thanks.” he ended the call and put his phone away.  “All we have to do is avoid Omi,” he told Aya. 

A look crossed Aya’s face that usually went with hauling out his sword and gutting someone.  “Hnn,” he noised, his hand flexing. 

Oh, oh, Yuuji thought.  “Okay, rental agency, major shrine in Tokyo and then on from there,” he said brightly, hoping Aya would be distracted by the task.  He was pretty sure he knew what would potentially happen to trigger the crisis.  “You know you need to start learning German, right?  You’re going to be all paranoid if you don’t.  Or worse, let Schuldig translate everything for you and if I know him, he will twist everything with that goal in mind.”

Aya looked even more irritated, but  he went from ‘murder someone’ to the ‘why do **_I_** have to thin out the hanging baskets’.

    *     *     *

Brad looked out the window at the lowering day.  “I don’t want to leave.”

“You’ve gone native,” Schuldig said over the men’s fashion magazine he was reading. 

“Said the guy deeply engrossed in _‘Non-no’_ ,” Brad muttered.

“Some of us still dress like human beings, not brain washed salary men.”

Brad snorted. 

“Two words, Brad.  Sweater vest.  The only things you have in your closet that isn’t a suit, or your creepers for night work, are sweater vests.  You dress like an ojisan.”

“And how would you like me to dress?

“You could put some jeans and a t-shirt on in nice weather.”

“You mean like Yuuji.  Maybe I should cut the bottoms off my t-shirts and expose my tummy to the world.”

Schuldig frowned.  “No,”he said firmly.  “That is my tummy.  Only I get to drool over that.”

“You drool on me and I will wring your neck.”

“Say that the next time I’m tongue banging your belly button.”

“Eugh,” Nagi said, having come out of his bedroom to raid the fridge. 

Schuldig licked a finger and turned a page as if to say, so there.

Brad did a slow burn and looked out the window again.  He really didn’t want to leave Japan. Let alone go back to Rozencreuz and face the council.  There was a good chance one of them would pick up the fact that _he_ was the reason The Three were dead.  But how they would react to this was not his problem.  Nagi was certain the list was correct, and he had checked over and over again until he’d lost count of who would do what if the truth came out.  No, this was going to be annoying, more so, perhaps than facing the The Three in one of their worst moods. 

“Stop brooding,” Schuldig advised.  “Nothing is as bad as facing those old farts.  Though I would have liked to introduced them to one of those spider things, they are dead and gone.  The council is just a pack of cards.”

*     *     *

Yuuji sat down on the sofa with a cup of coffee and sighed, looking at the coffee table where he’d left his cell phone, watch and the keys beside his wallet before taking an after supper shower.  He had dragged this out as much as possible.  There was no getting away from it now.

“What?” Aya asked, picking up the television book to flip through it. 

“I have to call my parents,” the blond said. 

Aya looked at him blankly at first, then concerned. 

“Seven hours difference,” Yuuji picked up his watch looked at it, then strapped it on.  “If I call them now, it will be just after two pm there.  _If_ they have the same phone numbers and _if_ they aren’t too busy to answer. And if The Three put the edict on me just for not being dead, did anyone _tell_ _them_ I'm alive?  Are they even going to believe it’s me?”

Aya sat down beside him. “Just call.”

Yuuji looked at him.  Funky burgundy red hair towel dried, clad in his cropped sleeve sweat shirt, slightly warn pj bottoms, off the bargain rack socks and house hold slippers, he looked good.  How the hell was he going to explain _this_ to his parents once the screaming was over?  They’d been shocked, resigned about Brad; but this, _this_ was a huge step down in their plans.  Brad was a calculated exception and basically, their fault, but _this_ , he was going to hear about. 

He wouldn’t mention it just yet. 

He picked up the phone. 

They had kept the same numbers.  His father’s went to voice mail.  His brain fumbled with a possible message, then he swallowed and hung up.  Okaaay, that had been stupid.

His mother answered on the tenth ring, exasperated that someone would call from a number she didn’t know.  “Yes?”

He smiled.  “Mummy,” he said, probably more glad to hear her voice than a man his age should be.

A sharp drawn breath.   “Yuuji?” she squawked.  “Yuuji, is that you?  If this is a fake, I will hunt you down and kill you, you fucking bastard!”

“Mum, chill, don’t go dragon lady on me,” he felt something slide down his face and wiped at it with a finger, then stared at the wetness.  ‘ _Ohmygod i am crying for my mommy’._  He felt like a fool. 

“Jesus fucking christ, it is you!” she breathed.

Cue fifteen minutes of half coherent sobbing, death threats and demands.  He put the phone on loudspeaker and put a finger to his lips in warning at Aya.  “Yes, Mum,” he said occasionally to let her know he was still listening. 

“Three god damned years!  Where the hell are you!  Where the _fucking_ hell are you!” she finally demanded.

He picked up the phone and put it back in normal mode.  “Well, I’m in a sort of ravine, in a pay phone, and there is this red guy with horns and a pitchfork and he’s pointing at his watch and a long line of other guys just south of a huge pit of flames,” Yuuji said, mocking confusion.  “Can you track this call?”

“I am going to late term abort you, you ungrateful little shit!” she yelled at him.  “How dare you joke with your mother!  Answer me!” 

“Tokyo,” he said.  “It’s a very long, complicated story.” Damn it, he was getting snotty.  He motioned to Aya to get him a box of tissues. 

Aya was smiling at him in a way he wanted to smack off that pretty face, and went to get a box from the little kitchen counter.

“ _Go Away_.” Yuuji mouthed at him silently, wiping his nose while his mother spewed lava and ash. 

Aya pouted at him, but looked amused about it; then he got up and went into the bedroom to shut the door.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Six

 

 “Passports and visas,” Nagi said, shoving them back into the large envelope and put them on the table next to Brad’s laptop.  “Sales ads,” he sorted through the rest.  “Damn, specials everywhere now that we’re _leaving_ ,” he tossed the junk mail into the paper recycling bin. 

“No one wants to go, Nagi,” Schuldig was putting the clean dishes away.  They had come with the place and he had to make sure they were not going to get charged for any chips and cracks.  He was certain this would be the week everything broke. “We’re going to have to scope out all the good restaurants, and from the looks of it, there will be nothing but middle eastern food now.  I will starve to death,” he finished with quiet resignation.

“Don’t worry,” Brad said dully, “When I rule the world, I will have your precious Asian Fusion food shipped in every day.”

“Ha-ha,” Schuldig stated flatly.  “That would be funny if it were not so nearly true.”

Brad sighed and closed the browser on the news, then stared at the desktop background of swirling boring blue bubbles, chin in hand.  “I don’t want to.”

“If you don’t, we will be killed.” The red head stated.

“Not so much killed as hounded until I commit suicide,” Brad said morosely. 

“You’re not really going to rule the world, are you?” Nagi asked, not trusting him. 

“It’s a joke,” Brad said. 

“Then laugh,” Nagi said. 

Brad looked up at him.  “Ha. Ha,” he said dully.

“We’re doomed,” Nagi turned and headed for his room. 

Schuldig shut the last cupboard door and turned to lean on the counter, arms crossed, looking at him.  “So basically, you unleash that thing on the school and we look innocent and dump everything in the Council’s lap and it’s business as usual?” 

“Mostly,” Brad said, lifting a hand to beckon him over. 

The red head walked over to be gathered into a hug by the hips and leaned on.  He draped an arm around Brad’s shoulders and patted his ink black mop with the other hand as Brad rested his cheek against a clavicle bone.  “There is always my plan.”

“Oh, come on, we _can’t_ kill everyone.”

“Why not?” Schuldig insisted.

“Who would pay our bills? Goose, golden egg?   Or was your childhood that deprived you didn’t even get fables?”

“I know that one, I just don’t remember anything about how I know it,” Schuldig admitted. 

“Why does everyone I know have amnesia?” Brad sighed.

“Good question,” Schuldig said.  “Seriously, what are the odds?”

“Tell Nagi to look them up.  If we kill everyone, that leaves us with no foundation.  We’d have to start our own infernal organization, or start at ground level everywhere we go from now on.  Plan A is out, I can’t tolerate stupidity and we would have to find and train people.  You know I have no fucking patience.  And fuck hard work, so fuck plan B.  I like my privileged life, I’ve already worked hard enough to get where I am.  Being a freelance assassin is like being a stray dog,” he frowned.

“Poor thing.  Your evil plan has come to fruition and now you are having postpartum depression,” Schuldig was playing with his hair.  “Can we go watch a Kabuki play before we go?”

“What’s playing?”

“’Benten Kozo’.  The classic version, not that new wave crap, and I really, really, _really_ want to see it.”

Brad looked up at him, his glasses a bit askew, “Seriously?  You _have_ to pick one based on fashion and shop lifting?”

“Well what do you want?” Schuldig pushed his glasses back into order with a fingertip.  “The only other one is another stupid Romeo and Juliet rehash with new, improved death.”

“Shop lifting it is,” Brad said, leaning on him again. 

“I’ll order the big bento with all the goodies in them,” Schuldig said, perking up a little. 

“Get four sets.  Yuuji is going to invite himself and the glump, and Nagi will ‘hell no’ it.” Brad sighed.

“I don’t care.  Kabuki is better in a crowd.” Schuldig stated.  “It is the crowd experience.  Kabuki is a gestalt of people doing mundane things in strange ways. The audience is the performance, the performance is just there to support the audience in their experience.”

“You are so full of shit,” Brad informed him.       

“If that is what you call over educated, then so be it,” Schuldig patted him on the head again.   

    *     *     *

“They shut down the school?”

“Bugged out.  Closed it down, sent everyone home, students, teachers, staff.  The place is a ghost town,” a man in a beige duffle coat no one would look at twice stood next to an unobtrusive rental car parked down the road from the massive walls and gates of the isolated school. He had a satellite phone to his ear, encrypted against anyone possibly tapping in.   

Silence. 

Just when the agent thought the connection had gone lost, there was a harsh breath and his contact spoke again.  “If The Three had been alive, they would have held their ground.  Now, they run like rats,” he spoke in a half mutter.

The agent hesitated.  “Are we certain The Three are dead?”

“The bodies were found in the rubble,” the voice was firm again.  “There is no mistaking them by the autopsies. Three bodies, unusually elderly, one woman, two men, Caucasian, practically mummified amidst the others, bullets in the head and hearts.  Esset has cut their own heads off.”

    *     *     *

The gavel smacked the silver framed wooden plate.  “ _Gentlemen_ , let's not cut off our own heads to spite our enemies,” the man seated at the head of the table for this session said dourly, setting the gavel down.  As with each meeting in the weeks since The Three had been killed, they took leadership in turn, drawn by lots.  He was stuck this time.  No one who relished the position had gained it yet, and those who were chosen were careful to maintain democracy, lest there be revenge.

“The whole thing shows the pathetic, bolshie thinking of our foes,” the Chancellor of Rozencreuz, seated to his right, slapped a hand on the table with a sour face.  “The whole world bleats along like good little sheep to their leading, so it must be so.  What made them think _we_ would be so terrified of our own children rebelling that we would bow down like the rest of those cowards?”

“Simple arrogance,” a man further down the long oval table stated.  “After all, their plans have succeeded for decades, what could go against them now?” he said sarcastically.

“The attack in Shinjuku....” someone started to point out.

“Was no attack,” another member stated, tapping on the print out. “The fact that the alignment occurred at the same time is proof enough. Someone else had plans. The alignment the Elders were looking for simply didn’t work out for them.  We are not the only ones who were pursuing this line in the world.  And our enemies would more likely have tried something like this in the Lebanon, not Japan on the other side of the world.”

“Practice run,” someone else said, tuning in to the standard paranoia. 

A run of murmurs went up, and the temporary head of the council picked up the gavel and tapped until the murmuring stopped.  He sighed, half slouched on the arm of the head chair.  “Do you doubt our agent?” he asked calmly, looking around.

They all looked around the table at each other, fits and starts of fear, anger and open question on their faces.  _Did they?_

“He couldn’t prevent the deaths of The Three and the failure of the ceremony,” someone spoke up finally.

“And this is a problem?” someone else inquired drolly. 

Silence louder than an audible gasp of shock settled. 

“Do you doubt our agent?” the council leader asked again, ignoring what would have been treason and resulted in immediate execution, were The Three still alive.   

The file in front of each attendee was opened and examined carefully again.   Finally when everyone had put the covers of their file down, and each face was lifted, eyes meeting the head of the council,  “Vote,” he said. 

The members hesitantly raised their right hands, elbows on the table, palm out.  Not a right hand stayed down in the room.  Once again, a die was cast and there was no going back.

    *     *     *

Over the noise of the weirdly chanting dialog and stomping posturing on stage, Brad’s sudden extra stillness drew Schuldig’s attention like a gunshot.  “Vas?”

Brad blinked.  Anyone not so in tune with their ability would have said someone had walked over their grave.  He knew exactly who was goose stepping on his.  He frowned.  “The council just voted absolute confidence,” he said quietly.  “I am so screwed.”

Schuldig grinned like a Cheshire cat.  The vocalizations and music on the Kabuki stage came to a resounding crescendo and ended on a heavy down beat, doing more to punctuate his feelings in the matter than he might have himself. 

Brad glared at him. 

Yuuji gave him a little shove on the shoulder, smiling in congratulations.  “’Hail to the King, Baby’.”

“You need to stop watching those _stupid_ movies,” Brad informed him.  “It’s a vote of confidence, not a damn crowning.”

Schuldig met Yuuji’s eyes across Brad’s knees.  Like everyone else except the elderly who had brought their own folding chairs, they were seated on mats and cushions, picnic style on the sectioned off floor.  He didn’t  need to read his mind to see the blond was just as pleased as he was.

Aya sat on the other side of Yuuji, wondering what the hell was going on, as usual.  He put a hand on Yuuji’s knee to get his attention.  “What is happening?”

Yuuji turned to him.  “Premonition.  The council bought it.  Everything.  The attack on the Three, the report on Shinjuku.  Absolute confidence.”

“So no one is going to try to kill them—or you?” Aya asked. 

“Not for this,” Yuuji said, smiling. 

“You’re so sure?  He can _see_ that far?”

“When it involves him personally, it usually jumps at him.”

Aya looked over at Brad who was scowling at the actors.  “He doesn’t look too happy about it.”

“He’s stubborn, that’s all,” Yuuji said. 

“It must be boring, knowing everything before it happens,” Aya said after a few moments.

“Well, he’s used to it, the same way as Schuldig is used to hearing everyone’s thoughts.  The same way you know you won’t die of un-natural causes.”

Aya frowned now.  “But I don’t _know_ I won’t die.  Something _might_ get past this thing inside me.”

“It would have to be a pretty sneaky something,” Yuuji assured him, wondering if it _were_ possible.  Say, if someone knew about his talent, and somehow slipped around it?  What sort of talent would that take?  If even Schuldig couldn’t get around it?

“Are you thinking of ways to kill me?” Aya’s eyes narrowed evilly.

“How do you feel about being fucked to death?” Yuuji asked right back at him.

Aya blushed, then hit him, a knuckle punch right in the thigh muscle.

“Oh, damn it,” Yuuji fell over on him in pain.  “Shit, shit, shit, that hurt!” he would not yell, so he hissed. 

“See how he carries on,” Schuldig said primly to Brad, fanning himself with one of the stiff round fans that bore the play’s program. 

Brad smothered his laughter.  “You deserved that,” he told Yuuji.  

*     *      *

“Have fun at the cat fight?” Nagi asked when they tumbled in, rather tipsy, that evening. 

“You have no respect for your culture,” Schuldig accused.

“We have an assignment from the Council,” Nagi informed them. “Is he _drunk_?”

Brad was wavering on his feet, looking very confused.

“Yes, well,” Schuldig wavered a bit too. “Very.”

Nagi added his talent to keeping them both upright.  “I am _not_ going to deal with this ever again,” he stated.  “You are supposed to be responsible for this team.”

“Hai, hai,” Schuldig giggled.  “Resussponssissible, thas me.” He saluted, missing his head completely.

“So many colours,” Brad said, completely dazed, and then had another swig from the huge sake bottle he was clutching.  It was empty. He stared at it in wonder. 

“Where are the other two?” Nagi demanded.

“Whoops,” Schuldig said.  “Lost them.” Then he nearly fell over in a fit of giggles, throwing more weight on Nagi’s talent, as Brad nearly collapsed with him.

“Stand up straight or I will drop you where you are!”

   *     *     *

Yuuji woke up on a park bench, Aya draped over him.  The sun was shining.  His head was splitting, and he had no idea of where they were.  “Aya, wake up,” he shook his shoulder.

“unnggghhhhh,” Aya groaned and snuggled down for further sleep.

“Aya, I am not your mattress, and we’re in a public park.”

A mother with two little kids off to school bravely ignored them as she walked by.  The little kids stared at them wide eyed. 

“Aya, wake up!” Yuuji pushed him off. 

Aya rolled off and landed hard, bonking his head.  “Owe, damn it!” he complained.  “What the fuck!”

“Exactly,” Yuuji said, sitting up himself, and fighting off a wave of nausea.  “What the hell are we doing out here?”

  *     *     *

Brad downed the aspirin and drank the water, and nearly died.  

Schuldig clung to the table for support, lost somewhere at sea under a blinding tropical sun, sharks circling.

Tot was under orders to be very, very quiet. She stared at them in amazement.  This sort of thing never happened in her old household, not unless someone was in a cage and there had been precise lab work and injections. 

Nagi felt the same way.  What the hell had they been thinking!  They could have been killed.  Had they lost their minds?  Was the immediate threat to their continued existence being over and done with so much of an excuse to go off the rez? 

He put coffee down and shoved Schuldig.  “Drink your coffee.”

Schuldig put out his forearm, fist clenched. 

Nagi smacked it.  “No IVs here, asshole.”

“Emergency kit,” Schuldig rasped into the table. 

“No, really.” Nagi said, putting Brad’s cup down and picking up his hand and wrapping it around the handle. 

Brad grasped it with the other hand as well, raised it shakily to his lips, had a sip, then started gulping it down.

Nagi got another cup out, figuring he was going to have to rotate them for the next half hour. 

Tot walked Rabbi-chan across the table and made the stuffed toy hug Schuldig's head. “Chu,” she said, mimicking a kiss.

“Oh yes, that cured my hangover completely,” Schuldig said bitterly.

Nagi swatted him again. “’ _It’s the thought that counts_ ’, asshole.”

“I hate you,” Schuldig said, sitting up just enough to drag the coffee to his lips. 

Brad flung himself out of his chair and raced to the bathroom to throw up. 

“He better hit the mark,” Nagi glared after him. 

        *     *     *

Somehow after a day of nursing hangovers and regrets, general snarling and growling over the selling of cars, storage, and mind changing, along with a serious argument about just saying to hell with it and everything else, in two variations in two separate domiciles, they managed to get on the plane the next noon.  Consequently, everyone was grumpy, and even business class seating didn’t do anything to abate it. 

“If you ask me one more time if I need _anything_ without being called over, I will take a deep breath and scream rape.” Brad told the flirtatious stewardess. 

She paled, then turned red under her makeup, and got lost.

“There go _her_ plans for the layover,” Schuldig muttered.  “I wonder how many expense accounts she’s been listed on as ‘in room services’.”

“Some old fool will marry her eventually, and she will move all her relatives, including her senile mother, incontinent father, _and_ her shiftless drug dealing thug boyfriend in on him,” Brad said, opening his paperback. 

“I am going to sleep,” Yuuji said, putting his earphones in and cueing up his music list on his phone, which was now plugged into the charger on the side of his seat.  “Wake me up when you start WW3.” He tilted his seat just enough, and managed to stretch his long legs out under Brad’s seat. 

Aya scowled at him, then decided to try the same thing.  Not used to planes, he was terrified.  The last big crash was still in the news, and that they would be following a flight path over areas where people actually _shot_ _rockets_ at commercial planes was not making him happy, either. 

“Relax, _Lucky_ ,” Schuldig said over the in flight magazine full of advertisements for luxury goods anyone could rarely afford, even in _this_ section.  “With you on board, we’re all perfectly safe.”

“We’re not going to crash or be shot at or bo—anything else,” Brad narrowly avoided the magic word and getting the plan turned around and them being thrown off.  God, he hated the world.  His brain still felt like road kill, and now he didn’t dare continue to drink mineral water or he’d spend the flight outside the bathroom door waiting for that old fool up the aisle to get out. 

Nagi was going over the files he’d been sent on his laptop.  Tot was playing games on her tablet.  Rabbi-chan was propped up to look out the window and had had his photo taken and glorified with glitter and bling for doing so.  Rabbi-chan now had a blog, with Nagi’s approval before each post, but it kept Tot’s mind off whatever her mind needed to be kept off.  He did, however, question Schuldig’s methods of treating insanity, since he was obviously completely nuts himself. 

Schuldig reached over the seat and popped him one on top of the head with the flat of his palm.

Nagi whipped round to glare at him. 

Schuldig grinned at him. 

“Stop it,” Brad said, turning a page in his book.   

 “Punish him!” Nagi demanded.

“Schuldig, no sex for you tonight,” Brad said dryly. 

Nagi stuck his tongue out at Schuldig then went back to work.

/When he realizes we will still be on the plane until sunrise, you are going to be sorry,/ Schuldig informed Brad.

/Devil in the details,/ Brad thought back at him.  /Now shut up.  And _don’t_ start that _‘there’s something on the wing’_ game again./

/Oh, come on!/ Schuldig protested immaturely. /How often do I get to play that!/ 

/They put down for passengers passing too much gas these days, don’t put us on a delay.  I want to get this over with./

Schuldig sulked. 

Brad reached down to get his briefcase up onto his lap and opened it.  Under his slim laptop was another paperback.  He held it out to Schuldig, who scowled and took it. He looked at it, and his face went sour. “Oh shit, not another damn--,”

“It will give you something to bitch about for a few hours.  Do so quietly.”

“This guy is a moron.  Ex-CIA my ass,” Schuldig squirmed in his seat to get comfortable.  “All these thriller authors are always claiming to be ex-special ops, ex-black ops, ex-CIA,” he grumbled, finding the first page of the story, fifteen pages past all the praising review notes and advertising of past books.  

“Actually, I think these guys are why the CIA does so badly.” Brad chuckled.

 

 

 


	7. Seven

 

 

The early morning chill in the high mountain air was enough to take one’s breath away as they stepped out of the van into the drive leading up to the gates of the school compound.  Something between a palace and a prison, the buildings made a brave attempt to loom ominously, with the breathtakingly gorgeous surroundings of the Alpine range piddling on that idea.  A 3.4 meter tall wall prevented the steady stream of tourists to the picturesque remote region from seeing much of anything but the roofline close up.  However, anyone could climb up one of the mountain paths, and with a good high power glass, spy for what it was worth.  All they would see was yet another expensive Swiss boarding school with uniformed students, this one with a more military theme.  It was distant enough from the local town, Grächen, to allow for ‘target practice’ without the police being called every five minutes, yet close enough to be walked to if you were young and very determined to get drunk.

“Creepy quiet,” Schuldig commented almost under his breath.  “Why do we have to stay here if no one is here?” He kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his military surplus woollen coat.

“Because no one is here,” Brad said in his annoying way, opening his small black leather bound note book and looking at the code.  He punched it into the key pad.  This only lit up the system.  He then gave the real code verbally, a onetime use combination that the system would then discard. Moments later, the gates swung open.  He motioned for Yuuji to drive the SUV, in while the rest of them walked. “It’s so quiet,” Schuldig said again, looking up at the stone hewn buildings.  “You can hear the birds.”

Yuuji got out of the van, shutting the door behind him, putting on his sunglasses and looking up at the three story sprawl.  The sound of the car door shutting had echoed off the walls.  “I need a beer,” he stated sourly.

“Don’t we all,” Brad said.     

“You’re sure the place is empty,” Aya asked.  He was buckled up in his long black leather coat with the grey shoulder patches.  Nagi and Tot wore fake fur lined duffle coats, Nagi’s black, Tot’s pastel pink.  Brad and Yuuji had dark, thick wool overcoats, bought in last minute shopping off the same rack.

“ _Telepath_ , Fujimiya,” Schuldig drawled.

“And that _always_ works?” Aya looked at him.   

Over tired and stressed from the long flight, Schuldig frowned, not liking the tone in the younger man's resonant voice, and picking up his disbelief.  “Brad?”

“Yes, it always works,” Brad said firmly. “There is no one here.”  He took out a set of keys and found the one he needed.  The locked box by the imposing front doors opened readily enough, but then he had to go through the code and password thing again.  He pushed the right side door open and kicked down the iron brace to hold it open.  

The air in the building smelt of wood soap and beeswax polish, old fire smoke, and the library-like whiff of disintegrating paper and book binding glue.  A huge case clock directly across from the front doors beat the time like a bronze and dark wooden heart in the foyer.  There was something all too familiar about the art deco eagle emblazoned on the porcelain faceplate, but someone had carefully hand painted a red rose over what ever had been fired into the wreathed medallion its talons rested on.  

Two grand wooden staircases, the finials capped with life size eagles whose perches had also been altered after the fact swept up to either side, leading into the wings of the main building.   All else was silent, eerie to those who had never seen it so empty in a lifetime.  The sparse decoration on the half panelled walls consisted of paintings of landscapes and quaint street scenes.  Oddly, given a place of strange pride on the wall to one side over a bare trestle table hung a battered oriental rug. It was foot worn as if someone had paced it thin, a bit tattered at one edge, and had a hand’s breadth dark stain to one side on the pattern that did not bode well for the dry cleaners. 

Brad looked at it and shuddered. “They should burn that thing.” He then lead them down the hall way, their footsteps echoing to match the clock, to another set of double doors marked Chancellor’s Office by a brass plate on the left one. 

“Why does this place seem weirdly familiar?” Aya asked, looking around.

Brad opened both doors to let the air change.  “Because some people can’t let go.”  He went past the waiting room row of chairs and the secretary’s desk to the inner office door.  This he also unlocked and threw open.  The French doors behind the Chancellor’s desk overlooked a courtyard with a fountain topped by a sundial and garden planted paths. 

Yuuji opened an old fashioned wood and metal file cabinet’s drawer.  “Cleaned out,” he stated, shutting it. 

“So we were told,” Brad said, sitting down at the Chancellor’s desk.  He took out the box he had managed to stuff into the outer pocket of the overcoat.  “Fujimiya,” he put it on the desk top.  “Do your thing.”

Aya frowned, then stepped forward and picked up the box in his gloved hand, turning it to find where it might be easiest to open. “This may not work.” He and Yuuji had been unable to find out who had performed the ground cleansing ceremony for the Government building.  The one priest they had spoken to had been rather off putting and told them they had as much chance of it working as a Catholic Saint being installed in a Shinto shrine. 

“It will, if you do it,” Brad looked up at him. 

Aya looked at him, then came to a decision.   _(Something along the lines of beating Crawford to death, one way or another, but that was beside the point.)_

“No, I can’t tell him what to do,” Brad stated as Yuuji’s mouth opened.  Yuuji shut up with an annoyed look. “He has to do this himself.”

Aya set the box down, frowning at it.  He stripped off his gloves and put them in his coat pocket, then picked up the box again and walked out into the waiting room, to the secretary’s desk, where he set the box on the desk.  He cleared his mind for a few minutes, then hesitantly, thinking about what he _did_ know, reached over to flick the switch on the old fashioned brass and black enamel intercom system.  A red light came on.  He flicked another switch among a line of others, one labelled ‘Alle’.  There was a click and a quiet hum in the speakers high up on the wall. 

/ _Is_ he doing it right?/ Schuldig asked in Brad’s mind.

/Just watch./ Brad stated.  /Mephisto chose to use _his_ bone as a catalyst to the sewer creature’s rebirth in Shinjuku, and The Three were after his sister for a reason.  Yuuji said he ordered him to do something, anything, about the haunted house, and what ever it was, he did.  If what I suspect is true, your lucky boy’s family line has the blood of an onmyōji, a shaman.  Let’s see what his talent can do for us.  I can’t see the thing’s future.  Maybe it will take him./ he thought with murderous glee.

Tiffany blue eyes focused on him.  /You’re horrible./

Aya picked up an ebony handled brass letter opener that was on the desk and slit the paper wrapper open.  He set the letter opener back down and peeled the paper off the box.  There was nothing it in it.  He examined the paper, then squashed the box and let it fall into the waste can beside the desk.  He smoothed out the paper on the desk, then turned it another way, studying it. 

There were kanji written on it, old fashioned, brush written, snake-like calligraphy, along with what looked like an electric schematic, dots connected by lines.  Aya began to read aloud. 

They didn’t hear the words, but his mouth moved and a sense of sound came out.  Somewhere a vast bronze bell was ringing, vibrating through the air.  Yuuji winced, covering his sensitive ears.  Nagi and Tot stood there frozen while Schuldig openly gaped and Brad looked grim. 

Aya’s mouth stopped moving, he had stopped speaking.  The last strike of the invisible bell rolled off into silence. 

A scratching scuffling sound came from the speaker on the wall.  “Well done, Mr. Crawford.” 

It wasn’t the same voice they were now used to from Mephisto’s Nurse, but a mixture of male and female, shifting between them melodiously. 

“Thank Fujimiya.  It was his work, not mine.”

“A mere tool,” the voice/s said.

“Oh, _nice_ ,” Yuuji gave Brad a dirty look.

“Now what?” Brad asked the creature, ignoring Yuuji.

“Procure me a body, that I may walk among humans.” 

“How did Mephisto accomplish that?”

“The ER Chief was dying of leukaemia. He can not leave the building, in exchange for his existence.”

Brad got up and came into the outer room, looking down at the paper on the desk.  It was blank now.  “But your avatar was female in form.”

“A most efficient persona.”

“Then what form would you take here?” he couldn’t help looking up, around at the ceiling, a natural human desire to try and make eye contact with something he did not actually trust. 

“The one who sits at this desk,” the voice/s stated.  “I shall take this form.”

“Does she have any say in it?”

“Oh, I think Mr. Sarazawa can handle that part of our bargain.” There was a lilt in the voice/s bordering on laughter. 

“And then what?” Brad ignored Yuuji’s scandalized look.

“Then it will be as you arrange, as per our bargain, Mr. Crawford.  No other claims this land.  The building is solid, believed in, there is balance and order here.  The soil is rich, the water clean, the environment suitable.  I will take over the protection of this region.”

“Discreetly,” Brad stated.  “There will not be multiples of you running around.”

“Discreetly,” the voice/s said graciously.  “I will need access to the nervous system of this place.”

“Nagi, see to that,” Brad told the youth. 

Nagi looked at him.  “You’re sure of this?  The Council....” 

“They were willing to follow The Three into summoning a demon to rule the world,” Brad said coldly.  “Now let them deal with a Kami to rule the school that turns out their agents.”

Nagi heaved the sigh of one who knew everything was going to go wrong despite all efforts, and went to hack into the Chancellor’s computer.  Apparently, a device the man so despised, he had concealed in a cabinet in a corner of his office.  The screen was actually covered with a fine layer of dust.  Nagi took out his handkerchief and wiped it down, then pressed the on button, fully expecting a black screen with green text to load up. 

“How long will it take for you to settle in?” Brad asked the ceiling, out of what had become habit. 

“Give me a day or two,” the voice/s said.  “But I will require the body sooner.”

“Why is that?” Yuuji butted in.

“There are no priests, no shrine maidens here. I require a human interface.  Without this, I will withdraw, the contract will be forfeited by default.  Something must hold me here, on the border between the natural world and that you humans have constructed from the workings of your own minds.”

“Surreal,” Schuldig said to Brad. “So _we’re_ the imaginary ones?”

“Alright then, let's go find a body,” Brad said simply, picking up the keys from the desk and putting them in his pocket.  “Let no one else in but us until I say otherwise,” he said.

“And Nursie,” Schuldig added, “You can’t be influenced against your will by anything a human can do?  One like us?”

“You mean a telepath?” the voice/s sounded as sarcastically amused as ever.  “Not at all.  Nothing you little monkeys can do can influence us unless we chose so.”

“Just making sure,” Schuldig said, turning to follow Brad.  “It called us _monkeys_ ,” he whispered in complaint.

 “What exactly are we looking for?” Yuuji asked in the hallway.

“A miko,” Aya said.  “Traditionally, someone young enough to be clean, untouched in the cares of the world, innocent at heart.  Is that even possible here?”

“We are so screwed,” Schuldig stated.

“Give me a break,” Brad complained, “We are half an hour away from one of the great hiking and skiing resorts.  All those healthy, rich, well kept if slightly drugged young bodies. As for their brains, we can scrape off a little tarnish.”

“You _are_ terrible,” Schuldig pointed out yet again with unholy glee.     

*     *     *

“Six of them went up to the school, four of them have come back into town.  They’ve left the two younger ones at the school,” the man reported into the phone, watching the four men get out of the SUV in town.  He described each of them physically, then added, “From what I have heard, they are speaking Japanese, but three of them are European.  And, they move like covert ops.” He had watched them; their outward stance of being casual, but their eyes and how they observed everything around them, even they way they spread out when they walked, showed them to be on far more alert than normal people bothered with. 

“One of their elite teams,” the man on the other end of the connection stated as much asked.  “Stand down and maintain surveillance.  No need to rush in.  We need the background on the teams placed in Japan.  This sounds like the team involved in the Takatori mess.”

      *     *     * 

Yuuji handed Brad a huge soft pretzel in a paper napkin from the bakery counter of the restaurant.  Aya glared at the wry smiles this caused both of them and thought about stabbing one of his boot daggers into Yuuji’s thigh when he sat down at their table again. 

Then Yuuji took a little bite out of the one in his other hand and offered it to Aya with that same (if not more) sly smile that made him think about sticking something elsewhere. 

Aya glared at him and took the pretzel.  “What are these things?”

“Soft pretzel.  Chewy salty bread, good with beer.”

“It’s some sort of bagel?  I hate bagels,” Aya frowned at the bread loops as if the thing were out to get him. 

“Hmm, I don’t know about that, I just know it’s good to have one now and then.  It’s fresh out of the oven, too.  The place is packed and we’re going to have to wait for our food.”

Aya bit into it where Yuuji had bitten, completing the ‘indirect kiss.’  He chewed thoughtfully.  “It’s dead bland,” he tried to give it back. 

“You can dip it in mustard,” Yuuji informed him, pushing his hand back.

“If it’s so bland it needs mustard, why eat it?” Aya looked at him. 

“Same can be said for rice,” Yuuji admonished. 

“Rice is a meal, this is—a bland salty bread thing,” Aya made a face at the pretzel.  “Something you have to be drunk to appreciate.”

Brad laughed.  “True,” he said and had another bite of his.  “On the other hand, I am hungry, and smart enough to eat when I can.”

Another frown twitched at Aya's mouth, and he ate the damned pretzel.

Schuldig came back with four tankards of foam topped beer.  “None for me?” he demanded, seeing them eating.

Yuuji took two more from his coat pockets.  “ I kept it warm.” He handed one over after Schuldig had sat down. 

“You better not have spit on it,” Schuldig warned. 

“I did not,” Yuuji bristled.

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty,” Brad said drolly, looking around the crowded restaurant.  “You’re the one with the eye for women, pick one,” he looked at Yuuji.

Aya stopped chewing, his mouth full, and glared at Yuuji in outrage. 

“I don’t have an _eye for women_ , I have an eye for an _opportunity_ ,” Yuuji corrected.  “Training, talent?” he reminded Aya. 

Aya hated on him with the purple death rays, and viciously bit into the pretzel in a way that made Yuuji’s balls contract.  It gave him a little frisson of sexy, too, which made him wonder if a good chunk of his mind was completely unrecoverable.

“Women, Sarazawa,” Brad called him back from happy smut land.

Yuuji blinked.  “Um, oh yeah, women.” He looked around at the collection in the room.  “Honestly, what do you think _it_ wants?”

“Power,” Brad said. 

“I meant in the way of a body,” Yuuji said, irritation showing. 

“That one,” Schuldig spoke up suddenly, pointing. 

They all looked.  

“Now that’s creepy,” Yuuji said.  “Does fate really work like that?”

“ _Poster girl_ ,” Schuldig intoned in a sing-song voice, and sipped his beer.

“Bingo,” Brad grinned evilly.

“What are you guys talking about?” Aya asked.

“Check out Miss Oktoberfest,” Schuldig tilted his head in lieu of pointing, and sipped his beer, licking the residual foam off his upper lip. 

Aya frowned, looking and not seeing.

“The one with the long blond braids, in the furry jacket, painted on jeans and screaming pink hiking boots,” Yuuji frowned at him as if he were a dunce.

“Oh. That one,” Aya said, still not quite getting it.  “She looks drunk off her ass.” 

“ _He’s_ gay,” Schuldig told Brad, just as the waitress showed up with a tray of plates loaded with bratwurst, sauerkraut and potatoes. 

“What the hell is this?” Aya was offended. 

“Food,” Brad informed him, shoving the mustard pot over his way. 

    *     *     *

“If you had remembered to bring the duct tape...” Schuldig said. 

“Oh, do shut up,” Brad ordered, unlocking the door.

“This is wrong,” Aya said for the fifteenth time. 

“She weighs a ton,” Yuuji shifted the unconscious young woman he was carrying in a fireman’s lift. “At least she hasn’t spewed down my back.”

“What about her parents?” Aya asked. “People will miss her.”

“Women go missing all the time,” Brad said dully.  “It’s the same sad story throughout history.  At least this one won’t be found stripped, gang raped, brutally slaughtered by savages and left in a ditch.  She can call home later and tell them she has a new job,” he lead the way to the Chancellor’s office.

“You were treated the same way,” Aya told Yuuji.  “Disappeared and turned into someone else.”

“He’s got a point,” Yuuji dumped her on the row of chairs and then had to keep her totally limp form from rolling off them.  “Healthy Girl is not aerodynamically sound,” he tried shifting her butt further back and crossing her legs to keep her on the chairs.  

“Put a sign outside the door, Dangerous Curves Ahead,” Schuldig snickered at his own lame joke. 

“ _Bad Telepath_ ,” Brad hissed.  “And _you_ , don’t listen to _him_ ,” he told Yuuji, pointing at Aya.  “He’s warping your confused mind.  Remember what side you’re on.  The side that routinely kidnaps young women for nefarious purposes.”

“Pretty!” Tot pronounced, bouncing over to have a look at the new hire.  “Shoen would be so jealous!” she picked up a long wheat-blonde braid by the end to dangle it.

“ _Really_?” Nagi asked Brad after seeing the woman, teenaged scathing judgement in full swing.  “I bet her name is Seiglind or Brunhilda or something.  Did you drop her shield and spear in the hall?”  

“Schuldig thought it would be trite,” was Brad’s explanation. 

“Don’t be such a racist, you little yellow brat,” Schuldig took a swat at Nagi, just catching the air above his head.  “Alright, Nursie, do your thing,” he announced to the room.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Eight

   

“Herr Chancellor,” Crawford gave the head master a curt, mocking bow just short of the old Prussian style heel click.  The brat had always made impeccable manners yet another weapon. 

“Crawford,” the now past middle aged man said, eyeing him warily through the partially open door. “And _Sarazawa_ ,” he recognized the lanky Eurasian blond in the hallway behind him.  “ _You_ were ordered shot on sight.”  He wasn’t certain about the other two, red heads both of them; one flame that triggered a vague memory, one an implausible purple auburn Asian. 

“No one seems to have seen me, Herr Chancellor,” Yuuji said coolly. 

“But you know that the edict has been rescinded pending investigation,” the flame red head growled.  “Don’t you, Herr Holzweber.” 

He suddenly recognized him now.  The Guilty One.  The little bastard had been blurring his vision.  

The Chancellor forced himself to breath in and remember who was in control here.  His eyes flicked back to his alpha nemesis. “The Council has given you your orders, Crawford. Why are you not attending to them?”

“The Council,” Brad said, as if the idea amused him.  The three little syllables had the effect he desired, making the man’s skin crawl, (so Schuldig informed Brad).  “Yes, but you see, I must interrogate everyone involved in the incident.” He took off his black leather gloves, lined them up and folded them, tucking them in the right pocket of his black woollen trench coat with precise movements that sent the man remembering his youth and the black leather coated men who had interrogated his parents in East Germany before they escaped to the West. “Starting with you,” he focused coolly on the man’s eyes.

So much for the brief respite from the iron control of The Three. 

He stifled a heavy sigh and allowed them into his suite.

/Gently, Brad,/ Schuldig snickered in his mind.  /You’ll have him wetting his pants./

/Considering how often he tried to make me wet mine, _when_ I was allowed to keep them on, he’s fair game./

Schuldig’s mercury-quick mind frantically locked onto and was allowed to see the memory.  His alarm receded as he saw it was only humiliating punishment, not that _other thing_.  After all, the students at Rosencruez were trained to be vicious in flat out aggressive combat.  Healthy bodies, healthy minds, _healthy aim_.   

“My team, Herr Chancellor,” Brad introduced. “Sarazawa; Schuldig, you know. Fujimiya, a field recruit,” he sat down and made himself comfortable.   The Chancellor had removed himself to one of the more expensive suites in the local high end hotel.  Terrorizing him was first on Brad’s list after setting the kami loose on the school.  He was prepared to enjoy this, and it showed in his smile as he regarded the Chancellor.  “Now tell me what happened.”

“You have the reports,” the man said stubbornly, taking an arm chair, convinced his time was being wasted.

“Yes,” Brad stated smoothly, “And I have an A level telepath who still can’t read the mind of a piece of paper or a computer.  Tell us from _your point of view_ , and he will read only the information you have for us.  Not invade your personal space looking for every little detail.” It was difficult to tell if he meant it as threat or assurance, with that impertinent smirk. 

The Chancellor looked with some alarm at the telepath every one of whose teachers had claimed was so insane he only seemed sane by default. 

“I was just fucking with them,” Schuldig informed him.  “I’m really quite sane.” He threw in a full face twitch for emphasis, ending in looking very innocent.  _(It was horrible, and he knew it, having perfected it after many long hours practice.)_  

“ _Down_ , Schuldig,” Crawford said dryly, as if he had said it a million times before (and had).  “Don’t _encourage_ him, Herr Chancellor.  He really can’t help himself when it comes to tormenting people.  Just start at the beginning and end at the end.  He wont harm you,” he smiled with calculated insincerity.   

Schuldig ran a finger in an X over his chest, nodding, and gave him puppy dog eyes.  It was the most evil thing the Chancellor had ever seen. 

      *     *     *

Nagi and Tot stared at the young woman, whose ID showed her as Gudrun Traugott, 24, late of Salzgitter.  She half sat up on the benched row of chairs, winced and held her head, then looked around with eyes the colour of a Tyrolean lake in the summer sun.  She blinked woozily a few times to bring them into focus.  A silver sheen clicked into place across them, converting them now to a glacier blue.  “This one was drunk,” she stated in a voice that ran through a few odd pitches before it stabilized into something like normal sounding.  “And still is.” 

“Sorry about that,” Nagi said, not knowing what else to say.  “Do you have her memory?”

“Of course.  We are Gudrun.  We were employed part time as an office clerk in a small food export business.  Our fiancé has just contrived to make us dump him.  Our parents are not pleased.  We are on a trip with friends to go hiking and forget the bastard.  We have been drinking for most of the trip.  Four days now,” she winced again, still holding her head and keeping her eyes closed.  “Water.” 

Tot ran to get water from the school Chancellor’s small but well appointed washroom, while Nagi was sort of stuck, fighting his need to flee this female business.  “Is everything else okay?  You can access the computer and security system?” Maybe if he treated her like a computer peripheral? 

“We can.  But right now, we don’t even want to think.”

Tot ran back with a glass of water and handed it to her.  She drank it down, and Nagi thought if she had been chugging beer like _that_ , no wonder she was hung over. 

“What the hell are we wearing?  Get me some clothing,” she looked down at the skin tight pants she was wearing and frowned.

“Um--what do we call you?” Nagi asked, still a little confused by the personal pronoun mix ups.

“Frau Traugott,” she stated.  “Yes, we like that name.  I believe this is one of the problems with the fiancé.   That and his preposterous politics,” her eyes narrowed momentarily. 

Nagi told Tot where to find the school’s uniform storage, then hesitated.  “Um, I don’t--.” He looked at Frau Traugott.  Yuuji had called it correctly. She was ‘healthy’.  No push up padded bra there, he thought. blushing. “Sizes?” He nearly died as his voice cracked again.

“92C-72-94, 170, shoes 39 wide,” she recited, and laid back down across the chairs with a sigh, holding out the glass.  “More water.” 

      *     *     *

Crawford’s phone vibrated and he took it out, glancing at the ID when he was sure the Chancellor was not looking.  For the life of him, he could not _see_ who it was, despite it being Nagi’s number. That meant only one person.  He clicked the green icon, “Crawford,” he stated.

“Mr. Crawford,” a woman said with a familiar tone if not voice.  “I trust everything will be taken care of while you are in town.”

“Yes, Ms. Traugott,” he said.  “Of course.  How are you settling in.”

“’All your base are ours’,” said the amused voice. 

Crawford smiled.  “Excellent,” he said.  “Carry on.”  He hung up and looked at the Chancellor. “Ms., or should I say Frau Traugott, is your new secretary.”

The Chancellor blinked at him.  “But I didn’t...”

“ _New_ secretary,” Schuldig leaned over the coffee table, slapping a hand down, looking into his eyes menacingly.  Then added a mischievous grin. 

“The Council will...” The Chancellor persisted.

“Approve of everything I do,” Brad stated.  “And Chancellor, should you get any funny ideas about getting rid of Frau Traugott,” he practically purred.  “She is a symbiont entity, and is now physically linked to the school.  Every brick, every board, every wire, is under her control.  A little souvenir of Japan.”

“ _Symbiont entity_?” the Chancellor blustered. “What _nonsense_ is this!”

“The sort of nonsense you get when you go looking for lost Atlantians in the Himalayas, and attempting to summon demons or whatever,” Brad said calmly.  “If The Three had been able to follow through with their plans, where would any of us be right now?  You have a new secretary, and a very efficient one,” he added.  “Just do as she says, and you will live,” he smiled again. 

    *     *     *

“The man has alligator hide,” Yuuji said in the SUV.  “In all the years students have been tormenting him, it's a wonder he's not shot himself.”

“Cowards don't commit suicide,” Schuldig said. “And the man is useful in his position, as much as we all hate him to death,” he scowled. “I don't like this.” He was referring to the information received.

“Interestingly weak move on the part of who ever is behind this,” Brad said, steering the vehicle toward the hotel Frau Traugott had been staying at.  “Almost as if they wanted to call attention to something.  Even more so that they got as far as they did.  Obviously subtle?  Or _we_ simply don’t culturally accept that sort of thinking and it is so alien, no one realized it wasn’t just another student prank.”

“It stinks,” Yuuji pushed the hair out his face where the rush of air from the open window had blown it. “No, Brad, my guess is they actually thought it would work,” he said angrily.  “It’s happening all over the world.  Take it from someone who has been in the field.  People know how easy it is to psychologically control the majority of youth and it’s a free for all out there.  Tell a group of young idiots it is better to walk off a cliff than to exist and destroy the planet any further, and boom, 85% of the little lemmings will.” 

“What a load of horse crap,” Brad said.  “Do people _really_ think that way?”

“Oh, yes, and it’s spreading like black mold,” Schuldig said, making a pouty face.  “They are sooo busy worrying about their own poor hurt little feelings, and projecting their airy-fairy kindergarten ideals on everyone else, they can’t function on a day to day basis.  Either that, or they want to get rich quick with a law suit.  Some places are like standing in the middle of a hospital newborn unit.  Wah-wah-wah, I want to go back in the womb!” he mimed shooting himself in the head.

Brad was frowning.  “Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!” he hit the steering wheel for emphasis.

“Careful, you’re offending the Vegans or something,” Yuuji said dryly.

“Without bullshit, they wouldn’t have food!” Schuldig exclaimed.

“They want clean fertilizer, not to exploit helpless animals, even if it is just to collect their poop!” Yuuji countered, picking up the insanity.

“But chemicals harm the earth and the plants they eat!” Schuldig slapped his cheeks and dragged his hands down.  “Oh, the inhumanity!”

“Which is precisely why--!” Yuuji held up his finger, waiting for it.

“We must kill them all,” Schuldig finished with cold determination.  “For the good of the planet.” He grinned, realising he finally had a ‘socially valid’ argument.    

“ _Of which human beings are incontrovertively part of!_ ” Brad said.  “You know what, stop this!  I don’t want to think about it.  If I ignore it, it will all go away.  The stupid will die out, or be killed off, and I will survive.”

“ _We_ ,” Yuuji corrected. 

Brad made an exasperated face at him in the rear-view mirror. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, _yes_ , we do,” Schuldig said, “’You’ being your selfish self and the support system you wallow in,” he said with great fondness.

In the back seat next to Yuuji, Aya rolled his eyes at their carrying on in German and with a sigh, opened his language text book.     

   *     *     *  

“What is all this?” Brad asked, looking at the mess in the Chancellor’s office. He hesitated to step inside.  Nagi sat at the Chancellor’s desk with his lap top open on it, while Tot and the ‘creature’ sorted files all over the inner and outer room, desks and chairs and even piles on the floor.  “Where did you get these?”

“They were stuffed into the old bomb shelter,” Nagi said, not looking up.  “I figured they couldn’t have just carted them off that easily.  Nothing was on line besides names and grades.”

“Is anyone else picking that up?” Schuldig said, going to the window, trying very hard not to freak out over the woman who _was not there._ “It feels like we are being watched, but I can’t pin point anything.  It keeps skipping in and out of my periphery.”

“Frau Traugott,” Brad said very carefully, unable to predict the creature’s reaction. Not even occupying a mortal body had set it on the timeline.  The real woman had simple disappeared from it.  “The plan here is?”

“To organize this mess,” she stated, turning to look at him coolly.  The braids were bound up now, the excessive make up gone, the hang over still making the body painful to inhabit.  She wore the standard grey-green pseudo military uniform for school personnel, with a knee length skirt over beige tights.  As with the pale ash blonde nurses of Mephisto Hospital, her aspect was that she would just as soon disembowel you for the fun of it as make a pleasant joke.  Different body, different colouring, same alien creature.  Brad almost had a sympathetic moment for the current staff and students, but then it passed.    

“Also to find out everything there is to know about the organization and everyone in it,” Nagi said grimly.  “Basically, hacked the place to hell and back.  Not so sure the Council is going to love that.”

Schuldig frowned at the view, but all he saw was the garden and its wall.  “Sarazawa, Fujimiya, let's go hunting,” he stated and headed for the door.  “No, Tot, you stay,” he warned her as she opened her mouth to ask. “You’re about as covert as a neon-pink elephant in that outfit.”

She stomped her foot and pouted.  “Tot never gets to have any fun!”

Nagi looked at her.  She grinned at him.  He smiled and went back to his work. 

Brad thought he would puke if he saw any more of this young romance, having set himself to avoid their timeline.   And what was Schuldig on about?  _He_ saw no threat out there.  “Frau Traugott, have you noticed anything lurking?”

“I am still integrating with the environment, I do not know what is ‘normal’ here,” Traugott said, picking up and flipping through a another folder off a pile.  “Hmm, you _have_ been a thorn in someone’s side.”   

Brad saw the name on the folder’s tab and snatched it from her, running his eyes over the first page in alarm. 

“Oh, don’t be such a prig,” she teased, and picked up another file.

Brad sat down on a stack of papers on a chair, not caring.  At the moment a chair was a chair, and he needed one.  He scowled at the open folder in his lap. 

Schuldig caught the mix of emotions coming off Brad before he slammed down the walls, then decided the sense of intrusion on the school compound was more his immediate duty than Brad’s sudden panicky irritation.  He rounded up the other two and locked their minds together. /Perimeter sweep.  All I am getting is a faint sense of focus on us.  Someone is blocking, but they can’t keep down the spike of curiosity now that we have returned to the building./

Fujimiya’s conscious bucked, a horse not yet used to the saddle.  Yuuji caught his arm and put a hand to his face, /Relax, Aya, it’s only on the surface, like com devices./

“I don’t want him in my mind!” Aya protested.   

/News, sweetie,/ Schuldig informed him, giving him a little mental shake to disorient him before he could bring _that thing_ up from the depths, /I can hear the surface of your mind all the time. I’ve just been ignoring you like I do everyone else./

Aya wanted to kill him. 

/ _Calm down_ ,/ Yuuji thought at him. /Just accept it.  We have to work together./

It was freaking him out to hear Yuuji’s voice in his head when his mouth wasn’t moving.  

Yuuji realised this.  “Aya, Aya, listen to me, look at me. Listen to my voice.  Calm down,” he stated. 

Aya drew a sharp, shaky breath.  The telepath was still there, like a stranger leaning on him in the train, too close, too there, but there was no overt hostility. 

Yuuji caressed his cheek, “You going to be okay?”

Aya nodded, still not liking it. 

“Go!” Brad ordered, irritated.   

Schuldig passed a memory map of the school to Aya, showing him the way out a side route, and then sent Yuuji the other way.  They would exit the property, taking it in  and search counter clockwise.  /And you,/ his voice jammed into Aya’s mind. /You’d damned well better get used to it.  We can’t always depend on electronics and while you have _your_ fucked up talent, if one of _us_ gets injured while separated, it may mean someone else’s life!/

Aya considered how many times this had happened with Weiss, and looked at Yuuji, blinking back stinging anger.  How many times had _he_ disappeared and come back injured? 

/ _Now_ you see,/ the German snapped at him.  /Now move it!/ he headed down the hallway to the front entrance. 

/Just don’t think anything dirty about me,/ Yuuji gave Aya a quick kiss on the lips, then grinned evilly and hurried away.

/Oh, very funny,/ Schuldig was out of sight, but he might as well have been standing right beside Aya.

Aya shuddered and focused on the mission.  Then realized just what Yuuji had done.  He laughed softly.

/ _Don’t you dare!_ / Schuldig warned. 

     *     *     *

Brad sat looking at the words on the page of his file.  He read them again for the fifth time.  “No, this isn’t right,” he stated. “Someone has mixed things up.”

He realized Nagi was looking at him oddly.  No, he hadn’t seen the file.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked. 

Brad stood up and closed the folder.  “I—will be,” he said, pulling himself together.  “Frau Traugott, I am going to destroy this.  And I strongly suggest you forget what you saw.” 

“Suit yourself,” she said, looking at him blandly.  “And the ones whose names are on this?  The ones who know?” She tossed another file on a pile.

Brad looked down at the file in his hands.  He opened it again, and flipped through the pages.  Quite a few names stood out; The Three, his teachers, members of the council.  This time he saw that mixed in with the deficits on his behaviour, his potential danger to the organization, and disciplinary actions--were affidavits for his good behaviour, a formal protest against curtailing his talent with an un-tested experimental procedure, requests for re-evaluation, for clemency, a review of his final evaluation—again and again he had been defended by ranking members of the Council because of his blood line.  One of them, Sarazawa Ishida.  Yuuji’s father?    

He dry swallowed and licked his lips.  _His_ _blood line?_  

He looked again at the document with the government imprint on it. 

_‘Who the hell am I?’_

 


	9. Nine

/Nothing,/ Schuldig stated, frustrated from loosing the blasted mind the moment he had thought he had almost grasped it.  He’d never had that happen before.  He’d gone into the upper meadow over looking the back wall of the compound.  His own mind tried to distract him with the nostalgia of it, coming up here to just get the hell away from people, letting the mountain winds and rustling grass act like white noise to smooth out his depression.  He frowned and focused on what Yuuji was trying to tell him.

/Too bad we lost Farfarello,/  Yuuji thought back at him.  /We could use a tracker./

/It was let him go or see him commit suicide the minute we dropped our guard.  Besides, he seemed happy there.  People should be happy where they are, don’t you think?/ Schuldig responded, the sense of mild depression coming at him again. 

/Careful, someone might find out how soft and squishy you are at heart./ Yuuji teased.

Schuldig almost, _almost_ tossed something back at him, but then remembered Fujimiya would probably throw the shit head out on his ass and then were would he be?  Twice as often on _his and Brad’s_   door step. /Maybe we should get one of those megaphones they took away from the students and you can snake charm the bastard into surrendering./      

/It doesn’t work that way,/ Yuuji grumbled.

/You’re awfully quiet, Fujimiya,/ Schuldig shot at him.  /Any thoughts on the situation?/

/We have probably let this person know we are aware of them.  All three of us prowling around like this looks suspicious./

Schuldig pondered this.  /Change of plans. Start making noise about the limits of the security system, and some of the sensors being out.  Talk aloud. Put your hands to your ears randomly like you have com units in and are blocking the breeze. Poke at the ground in certain places; talk location, rust, rodents, what ever, but don’t over do the chatter./ The feeling was gone now, but he still had a strange sensation of a storm brewing, even though the sky was almost completely clear, with that right on top of you blue you got up here in these mountains. 

This farce in action, they gradually worked their way back to the building. 

/Well that was fun,/ Yuuji drawled.  /I hope he, or she, bought it./

Schuldig dropped the mind links, glad to be rid of them the way he was feeling. Restless and uncomfortable, something was still definitely wrong, but he could not place it. “What bothers me is Brad loosing it over his file,” he said in the main hall.  “He could have told us whether we would have found this person or not, or where; but no, he is having a personal off time shit fit in there,” he tapped his head.

“It’s not that bad,” Yuuji assured him.  “It’s just—The Three wanted to keep something from him, and the Council agreed because of the circumstances.” A Rozencruz/Esset euphemism for ‘the Three would kill anyone who talked.’

Schuldig rounded on him.  “You knew!” he demanded.  “ _You_ know what was in that file?”

“I have some ideas, and a lot of the stuff I was there for, remember?” Yuuji looked a bit evasive but he was caught fair.  He shrugged a little.  “It’s all kind of complicated.  Listen,” he held up his hands defensively and spoke soothingly.  “Just go easy on him, let it sink in before you try to drag it out, okay?  Not everything has to be spilled like disembowelled guts in one swipe.”

“Oh, thank you for _that_ mental image,” Schuldig complained, then shot Aya a glare.  He wanted a fight, he felt it, the anger, and frustration building up.  But why?  “And I know where you got it from.  Listen to me, asshole,” he stepped over and poked Aya in the chest angrily.  “The only thing between you loosing blondie here permanently, and if you can’t be killed, you can certainly be locked up for life, is ME.  Brad will take him back, and believe me, he’d go!  So suck on that!” he turned and stormed off up one of the stair cases. 

Yuuji looked at Aya.  He reached over to pat him on the shoulder.  “It’s not your fight.  He’s just freaking out.”

Aya regarded him, as if letting every syllable of what the German had said sink in.  “If nothing happens to him, no big deal, right?”

Yuuji smiled. “So there,” he said.  “So stop bullying him.  Imagine how you would feel if you lived in his nightmare world.”

“Me pity that asshole?” Aya said in mild derision.  “He killed my parents, and put my sister in a coma.”

“ ** _I_** would have killed your parents if I hadn’t damn near been blown up.  And believe me, you and your sister would have been neatly included in that package.  But your crazy guardian angel decided to circumnavigate me, didn’t it?  So here we all are.  Are you done?”

Aya stared at him. 

Yuuji frowned and shook his head as if to clear it.  “Why are we fighting about this?” he said, genuinely puzzled.

Aya looked down, thinking.  “We—already had this fight.”

“Yes,” Yuuji said.  “ _Schuldig_!” he bellowed up the staircase. “I think we’ve been compromised!  We’re acting just like the students who were protesting!”  

The red head came around the corner, his face sullen, “You’re just sticking up for your fuck toy.”

“I hope you realise that is none of your business what I do in my own pants,” Yuuji said wryly. 

“I hate you,” Schuldig said after a second. “That was just horrible.” He came down the stairs.  He’d gotten a good portion of the way to his old room when he’d stopped, wondering why he was going there now.  “This is wrong.  Something is wrong, I feel like I’m loosing my grip.”

“No, I’m feeling it and so are you,” the blonde countered, with a glance at Aya.  “Who ever it is is using _all_ our weak spots.  But _how_?  You would pick up a telepath.”

Schuldig frowned, pushing his breeze mussed hair back.  “I think it is a very good thing we left Farfarello in Shinjuku.  We’d all be dead by now.”

Aya looked shame faced.  “I—forgot everything,” he realized.  “Shinjuku, my sister—.”

Schuldig’s mouth twitched in irritation, then he reluctantly held out his hand.  “My bad. I should have realized what was going on,” it was more a complaint than an apology, but it was something.

Aya hesitated, then awkwardly shook it. 

“What, no kiss?” Yuuji smirked.  “Tongue would be good.”

“Fucking pervert, we’re not lesbians for your entertainment.” Schuldig informed him and went to tell Brad. 

Aya shoved Yuuji back against the wall, glaring at him.  “You’d go back to _him?_ ” he growled jealously.

Yuuji licked his lips.  “To be honest, we have agreed to remain just friends, given that I was ‘dead’ for a few years, and Schuldig would do things to me that would not leave much left for _you_ to do things to.” He crossed his fingers behind his back. “Trust me, Aya, that door is closed.”           

Aya took a step closer with intent, then stopped and looked alarmed, glancing around for signs of a concealed camera or something.  “What if this person is really spying on us?” he asked quietly.

“Show time,” Yuuji said, catching his arm and pulling him close, that powerful, skinny body fitting neatly into his arms.  “Do you realized I haven’t had my Aya-fix since we got in the car to go to the Airport?” He dipped him backward on his heels.

Aya snorted, momentarily panicking then relaxing in the support of strong arms. “Aya-fix? You freak,” he complained against the lips pressing to his. 

But Yuuji’s outward silliness belied his inward concern.  And despite knowing the truth, it didn’t occur to Aya that Yuuji was marking his territory in more ways than one. 

If anyone was going to surreptitiously control _him_ , it was going to be Yuuji. 

        *     *    * 

Brad was sitting in the outer office, away from the paper hurricane inside the main office.  He’d chosen a chair that got the sun from the window, despite his overcoat.  He was slowly going through everything in the five centimetre thick file. His mind was locked shut, no one home, a look of concentration on his face. He was not even ‘listening’, as a brush of telepathy proved.

“You look like someone took your teddy bear away,” Schuldig felt slighted, being forced to speak aloud to get his attention.  It was such a little thing, but the little things were actually the ones that counted, weren’t they?

Brad turned a paper sideways to the others and closed the file before looking up at him.  “So?” the habit of Japanese was still ingrained to the point where even after reading in German, he spoke the word ‘de?’. 

“Nothing,” Schuldig reported, keeping priorities straight for a change. “No signs of anyone on the grounds surrounding the compound.  It was like a faint radio signal, going in and out.  I could not tune it in, but it was there.  Then we came back in and got into a fight in the hall.  Stupid stuff already out of the way, and obviously weird to have brought back up now, for no real reason.  All the time I was out there, I kept feeling as if something were hanging over me. I wanted to strike out, to do something, but with no target.  Fucking hormones or something,” he shoved his hair back.  “I quite nearly stormed off to my old first room in a fit of emo,” he blinked, thinking this over.  He had been transferred out of that particular room when he was fourteen, why _that_ room? “Tell me.  What is going on,” he focused on Brad again.

Brad sat there, weighted down by the pile of past on his lap, face blanked out again. 

Schuldig lost his temper. “Crawford!” he said loudly in his face.  “Come on, snap out of it!”

He blinked, “I don’t—I....” he struggled for his mental center of balance.  “Damn it,” he said. Then looked up at Schuldig. /Run a check, what just happened?/

Schuldig looked for signs of tampering.  /You sunk deep.  There is like a black rock where you were focused so tightly you were oblivious for a moment or two.  Not a temporal vision, something holding your complete attention,/ he tried to pry at the ‘rock’.

“No,” Brad shut him out again.  “I haven’t finished with this yet.” He pulled himself together.  “Not a telepath?”

Schuldig thought.  “Well, since the other two are _busy_ , I will do this report on my own,” he said with disapproval.  “I believe I was the most affected.  I started the fight, I reacted most strongly.  Sarazawa kept his temper, and even that psycho-pot Fujimiya seemed strangely quiet.  He, by the way, had a stunningly simple thought on the matter.  We were deliberately drawn out.  _It proved we detected a presence._   We were being played like little fish in a bowl.”

“Yuuji is reaffirming his control over Fujimiya,” Brad said ruefully.  A timeline he did _not_ need to follow any further.

“And vice-versa,” Schuldig said.  “You know when two cats are fighting and you try to break them up and you end up getting torn to ribbons?  That is _that_ relationship in a nutshell.  You stay away from that,” he pointed at Brad for emphasis. 

“I should think you would be more likely to want to toss a bucket of water on them,” Brad smirked. 

“In this case, there would only be gouts of blinding steam and the emergence from of even madder cats with an agenda.”

“Pull your linguistics together, I’m getting a headache,” Brad said.   

“You know the kitchen is like a mile away,” Schuldig said. 

“Frau Traugott, have you got the central heating on yet?” Brad called out.

“You never asked me to turn it on,  Herr Crawford,” she answered through the speakers. 

“Oh for—turn it on,” he shoved his glasses up with a finger.  “Coffee.” He stated and stood up, tucking the folder into the crook of his arm. 

*     *     *

Yuuji finished kissing Aya into compliance and brought him back onto his feet again. He knew he was finished, because those purple eyes were now half closed and Aya’s breathing was deep and slow.  And that tell tale lump in a certain spot was pressing on his own lump in a certain spot.  He slid his arm down lower on Aya’s back and pulled him a bit closer.  Yeah, his lump liked that lump.  His lump would like to take that lump out to dinner and some dancing and then maybe back to his pants for a little romance. 

“What are you grinning about?” Aya asked in a low rumble.

“Nothing,” Yuuji managed to stop himself from drooling as he said it and laughed a little, then kissed his psycho ex-Weiss partner on the neck, his other hand sliding up under Aya’s sweat shirt to graze a nipple with his thumb.  Then he came to his senses.  “We’d better find a room,” he stated, holding Aya off, even though there was something like the effect of magnetism going on here.  “Even if the school is closed down, I don’t think the main hall entrance is the best place to have sex.”

The door to the Chancellor’s office opened.  “Oh, I don’t know,” Brad said coldly, looking right at Yuuji.  “I’ve always had this fantasy of doing it right on the main stair rug.” He caught Schuldig’s coat sleeve and hauled him after him down the hall and through the side door that aimed toward the kitchen and cafeteria part of the building. 

“Ouch,” Yuuji said. 

Aya glared at him. 

“Well, that never happened,” Yuuji tried to look very, very innocent. 

Aya’s knee came up abruptly, aiming right for his balls.

Yuuji felt the initial impact, then said a very heartfelt little prayer of thanks to all the gods after it went no further than a warning shot. 

“Room,” Aya growled.  “Now.” 

*     *     *

“You are not allowed to get jealous any more,” Schuldig informed him, fighting with a scoop to get very frozen vanilla ice cream out of a 5 gallon tub while the microwave thawed out a plate of apple struddle.  Brad having the keys to the big walk in refrigerator and freezers was pretty much a child hood dream come true.  An extravaganza of fresh, frozen, and baked goods had left Schuldig rather stunned when he was ordered to ‘ _find the blasted coffee beans_ ’.  He imagined a celestial choir making a taa-daaa sound as he surveyed the racks of largesse before finding the coffee tub sin all that largesse.  

The kitchen was huge.  The equipment was huge.  Everything was huge.  After all, this was where an army of thousands was fed three times a day.  Industrial was the theme here. 

Brad measured filtered water into a reasonably normal looking coffee machine.  It held only twenty cups.  The coffee basket was the size of a small mixing bowl.  “Was I being jealous?” he said mildly, not the least big concerned and thus trumping all other’s attempts at portraying innocence.

Schuldig put more elbow into it and finally achieved a sizable scrape of the recalcitrant diary product just as the microwave chimed.  He set the scoop back in the container while he tested the pastry the time honoured way: yanking the door open and possibly sacrificing a finger tip.  “Still cold.” He closed the door and reset the device.  “Unless you were under the influence of our stalker, yes.  You were being jealous.  Still, right there in the main hall, not a good place.  Think of the children.”

“I try not to,” Brad said grimly.  “I really don’t like the way reproductive science is going.”

Schuldig licked the ice cream on the scoop, then shot him a look.  “Not _that_ way. I mean what if Nagi or Tot had walked into that.  Nagi, I know, would have done his little one eighty and door slam, but Tot, no.  We don’t want that.”

“I don’t even want to know what _that_ is,” Brad said, measuring the beans into the grinder.  “Are you going to share that or eat it all yourself?”

_No_ , _Yes!_ Schuldig's not so inner child said.  But his outer adult sighed and got out another plate.  “Are _you_ going to deal with the immediate threat?”

“The problem is I don’t see one.  This whole ‘immediate threat’ may be the result of what ever is triggering this feeling of unease in all of us.  It’s as if something is amplifying--,” he stopped short. 

Schuldig turned to look at him.  That whole lightbulb thing, yeah, that was literal.  Brad’s mind had flashed that beam of  glorious sunshine through clouds thing was the best way a telepath could compare it and it was quite accurate.    

“Amplifying.” Brad said again.  And looked over at him.

“Bingo,” Schuldig grinned. 

“Amplifying feelings of inadequacy, embattlement and stress,” Brad said.  “You’re the psych major, you know the results.  Now find the cause.”

“That’s right, delegate and then take the credit,” Schuldig pulled out the apple struddle and divided half of it onto another plate. 

“It’s what I do,” Brad got some heavy stoneware mugs down from a rack. 

Schuldig paused, having just dropped a scoop of ice cream on his plate.  “You don’t think it’s something slipped into the food?”

“At this point, I am willing to see.  What is it about being cold that makes one want to eat ice cream?”

“Ice cream melting on hot apple struddle,” Schuldig corrected, setting his jaw and digging out a scoop for the other plate. 

Brad smiled, setting the coffee on the staff table.  “Because when you go home, you want comfort food.  And that is very sad,” he sighed a little.

Schuldig licked the scoop and tossed it in the huge sink.  “Is it?” he put the tub of ice cream back in the walk in freezer, then hurried out and shut the door with a shiver.  “I always thought it would be a lovely place without all the people.  In a way, it is.”  The smell of scorched dust wafted from the central heating vents with a rattling breath.  “Now that the heating is on.”

“I liked it crowded,” Brad said.

Schuldig was now spooning sugar into his coffee.  “Why?”

“I don’t know. Coverage, I suppose.”

“Sort of the warm, cosy feeling an un-noticed wolf gets when in the middle of a flock of sheep,” Schuldig accused, and sipped his coffee. 

“Except here, it’s all wolves,” Brad said.  “Do I get a utensil, or are you going to feed this to me with your fingers?”

Schuldig sighed deeply and got up to grab him a spoon from the big racks on the counter and half tossed it across the table.  “You could use the one from your coffee if you were like normal people.” He sat down again.

“I happen to like black coffee,” Brad had a mouthful of ice cream and pastry.  “Truly sad,” he smiled.

Schuldig grinned.  “Lets keep the place all to ourselves for—like, a month.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Brad admonished.  “Besides, we have an un-this-worldly being to feed.  And if the rumours were true, it can get very destructive if it doesn’t get what ever it gets from interacting with humans.  I’m not as up on Japanese mythology as Nagi, but we had probably best give it other victims to diffuse its boredom with.”

Schuldig shivered again, and this time it was much more violent.  “You _had_ to remind me,” he glared at him.  “I was hoping to just let all that slide by, since to me she is like some sort of robot.  That woman, she’s gone,” he tapped his head.   “Nothing left of her.  That thing is just walking around and talking like some sort of clever recording.”

“Or perhaps her humanity is now blocked very effectively from human perception. Kamikakushi.”

“And that is how you will explain it to the Council?”

“Of course,” Brad smiled.

Schuldig set his spoon down for the moment and looked at him very seriously.  “So we have this outside influence amplifying our insecure sides, and ramping up our sense of embattlement, an alien entity you’ve sicced on the Organization, the Council and the fact that you plotted the outright assassinations of the Elders, and that file you were freaking out over.  Busy day?”

“Utter chaos,” Brad said across the top of his coffee mug.

        


	10. Ten

 

The bells were going off.  Old fashioned side by side metal concave pieces with a striker between them, strategically bolted into place to echo through the buildings and pitched to horrify people into some sort of immediate action, whether fire drill, alien invasion, end of the world, or to switch classes.  For now, it was wake up at the crack of dawn. 

Brad sat up in bed, sending Schuldig grumpily sprawling to his side of the narrow bed and nearly off it.  “FRAU TRAUGOTT!” he roared over the noise. 

The bells stopped. 

“Good morning, Herr Crawford,” the voice from the intercom speaker came sweetly. 

“Is this _really_ necessary?”

“The best way to get over jet lag is to simply get over it,” he was informed. 

He scowled.  “No.  I am going back to sleep for another two hours. YOU get over it.”

“It is 5 am. You have an appointment with the Council at 9:00 am.  The student’s files you asked for are laid out on the Chancellor’s desk, along with the report of the incidents.  I remind you that there is no kitchen staff.  Will you be breakfasting in town?”

Brad fell back on the pillow and threw an arm across his eyes with a groan.  “Alright, alright, you win.”   

“Are you having any difficulty with bowel movements?” she very nearly purred.

“WHAT?!” the arm went down again.

“Your wound,” she said.  “Air travel often induces constipation, and you must regularly evacuate your bowels or there may be complications in the new tissue.”

“You can tell the Mother Ship my god damned bowels are working just fine!” he said angrily and flung the blankets aside to get up, now that he was too pissed off to ever sleep again. 

“Wake me up when you get back,” Schuldig murmured, snuggling into the pillow.

“You’re _dreaming_ ,” Brad turned to pull the blankets off him and threw them on the floor at the foot of the bed. 

*     *     *

Frau Traugott was wrong.  There was kitchen staff, of a sort.

Yuuji cracked eggs into a large bowl, three in each hand.  Toast browned in the racks of the huge convection toaster.  Bacon fried on one six foot long griddle.  Mounds of shredded potato held together with mayonnaise and seasoning cooked on another.  Apparently he had spent time as a chef in a high end hotel restaurant on one of his infiltrations.  He was half asleep, but washed, shaved, half dressed in an undershirt shirt, uniform slacks and wearing a utility apron and cook’s cap he had found hanging in the kitchen staff room.  Every time he had a moment with a free hand, he grabbed his coffee mug and had a gulp. 

In the cafeteria proper, at a table nearest the kitchen, Schuldig drooped over his coffee, eyes closes, head on hand.  Nagi and Tot sat there blinking over theirs.  Aya had his head down on his crossed arms, letting a tea bag brew in a mug. 

Brad slipped his suit jacket down over the back of a chair, checked the knot on his tie, and sat down.  He reached over to clasp Schuldig’s rough gingery chin.  “When are you going to shave?”

“umrrr,” was the answer. 

The hand grasped harder, inducing mild pain.

Those tiffany blue eyes opened.  “When I am awake enough not to slit my throat,” he managed with his jaw in that clamp. 

Brad let go.  He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves in preparation to eat his meal. 

Schuldig glared at him resentfully, then sipped his coffee. 

“Any sign of our ‘friend’?” Brad asked.

“Not a peep,” the telepath said.  “Maybe like a sane person, he is sound asleep.”

“Naoe-kun,” Yuuji called from the kitchen.  “Come and help me load this service cart, will you?”

Nagi got up and went to do so.  No showing off this morning.  He wanted his eggs on his plate, not the floor.  He had spent all the previous afternoon identifying students who had been affected by the strange behavior in the security videos and finding their permanent records.  Frau Traugott was a slave driver.  Good thing he was used to it from Brad.

Breakfast distributed, Yuuji stood behind Aya’s chair and pulled him upright by the shoulders, then put a fork in his hand.  Half asleep, Aya made a blurry eyed stab at his potato cake.

Yuuji grinned and sat down, giving Brad a sexy wink when Aya was not looking. 

Schuldig tried to kick him under the table, but Yuuji had hooked his long legs behind his chair’s. 

“Grow up,” Brad said.  “Fujimiya, you will take Tot into town today and pretend to be tourists.  Look at everything, photograph everything.  Use your instinct.  While our guy might manage to stay out of photos, it's worth a try.  Double check yourselves, if you feel strange, or out of sorts, fussy, or a sudden argument occurs.  Since neither of you is very familiar with the other, there is no underlying tension for him to work with, so you should notice anything out of place.”

Fujimiya gave him a startled look, then glanced at Tot, who was picking carefully at her food as if afraid it would bite her back. 

/She doesn’t remember a thing about the fight with Weiss,/ Schuldig informed him, his mental voice a groggy rumble.  /And will not.  No ammo there,/  he peppered his eggs.

Aya frowned at the man but kept his opinions to himself.

“Uncle Brad, where will Nagi be?” Tot piped up.

Brad felt a very violent urge and swallowed his coffee instead.  Soon they would all die and rot and the worms would eat them and he could have his coffee in peace!  The warm blessed brown liquid sunk into his being and all was suddenly back in place in the world.  He set his cup down very precisely with just the right amount of mass per motion, a soft impact, and looked at the blue haired girl (whose roots were showing). “Tot, how many times have I told you not to call me _Papa_ or _Uncle_ or _any_ such familial terms?” he said very, very gently.

She got that stubborn look on her face. 

“Mister Crawford, or Herr Crawford, or Sir, and that will be that, or I will break this up right now and you can go back to Japan with or without Naoe.  Understood?”

Nagi’s mouth opened in shock, ready for a battle royal. 

“Yes, Sir,” Tot said just above a whisper, sunk into herself. 

Brad looked at Nagi with slightly raised eyebrows; a look that said ‘you had questions?’

Nagi subsided, and ate his eggs. 

/You should be glad, brat/ Schuldig informed him.  /She chose you and this charming mess, not a thought about Japan./

Nagi had been about to eject the telepath with something rude, but then he let the information sink in.  Yeah. He was happy about that.  “What _are_ my orders for the day?” he asked. 

“Frau Traugott will no doubt have more use for you,” Brad said, with the tiniest bit of a smirk that he had to hide behind his fork quickly before it became an outright grin of sadism.

*     *     *

Schuldig, shaved and tidy, looked at Yuuji in the hall.  “Why the hell are you in uniform?”

“Because I look hella spiffy in it,” Yuuji smoothed off the top of the peaked cap and set it on his head.  “Oberleutnant Sarazawa Yuuji, back from the dead and reporting for duty,” he purred with a smile and a lazy salute, looking dreadfully sexy. 

“Why can’t _I_ wear _my_ hat?” Schuldig asked Brad.

“Because you are not ten years old and yet dress like one when left to your own devices,” Brad said heartlessly.  “We are Elite Field Agents, he is merely Covert. Thus feeling inadequate, he plays it up when ever he can,” he treated Yuuji to a smug look and reached for the door handle. 

“Bitch,” Yuuji said concisely, sweeping past him before he could step out himself. 

“Ass,” Brad said.  “I’m driving, unless you _like_ looking like a glorified chauffer.”

“Fuckers,” Schuldig grumbled behind them.

    *     *     *

“Okay, this is scary,” Schuldig said, looking into the bright, open room through the double doors.  “What happened to dark and gloomy?”

Gone were the black out curtains and the intimidating spotlights in a darkened room.  The conference room was now brightly sunlit, and the view of the mountains through picture windows fantastic.  The huge space had been filled with an elongated U of curved tables, at which the 12 members of the High Council, 12 of the lower council, and the other team leaders who were in the country were seated. 

Brad drew a breath and steeled himself, stepping forward into the room.  /Read?/ he thought to Schuldig.

/Very odd,/ the telepath answered.  /They are just as weirded out as we are.  Floundering with out the Elders to boss them around.  Most anticipate some thing pleasant or at least amusing happening here today, but I don’t like the way Berger is looking at us.  He’s blocking, but what telepath doesn’t?  Chancellor Holzweber is going to shop you, but of course, you know that./ Schuldig glanced at Brad.

“Crawford, welcome home,” the man at the center curve of the table said pleasantly.  Greifeld, Crawford recalled.  Normally head of transport and logistics.  A past middle aged man with the military bearing to go with his stern looks, a short back and sides cut to his salt and pepper hair, hard grey eyes, and built just as hard.  “And _Sarazawa Yuuji_ ,” he said, those eyes taking in the man.  “The Council will be hearing your story.”

Yuuji bowed curtly, electing to say nothing.

“It is a pleasure to be here, Herr Greifeld, members of the council, thank you,” Brad said, setting his briefcase on the table at the end of the right side and taking the empty seat there.  He noticed that right away, two more chairs were brought and for Yuuji and Schuldig.    

Brad frowned slightly. This was like some strange alternate universe.  Had the deaths of the elders made such a massive change, or had someone managed to go back in time and step on a particularly important butterfly?  He felt exposed.  And _should_ a fire fight break out, the conference tables were veneered press wood and metal poles, nothing good enough to shelter behind and too many shooters to just duck the bullets.  Damn it, he should have brought Nagi just in case he had decided to kill everyone. He hated relying on Schuldig as a weapon, it was just so satisfying to shoot his own gun.     

Resigned to behaving himself, he opened his briefcase and took out the files, laying them out in three stacks. “I assume the Council will be questioning me on recent events in Japan?”

Greifeld relaxed a little and spoke,  “As you are no doubt aware, the deaths of the Elders has left some considerable turmoil.  The mess at Koua Academy for one example.  More field agents are coming forward with evidence of conflicting orders and assignments now that the fear of retaliation has been removed.  We have read your reports and everything seems to be in order.  Our main concern is that you are loyal to the organization.”

Brad picked up the one file on the end of his three sets.  “That depends on _this_ , doesn’t it?” he set it down again. 

Greifeld sighed a little.  “You do realize that students are not intended to see their permanent records,” he said mildly.

“Oh, I can understand why,” Brad stated, trying to keep himself back from being openly snide.  “It’s quite a shock.”

Greifeld rubbed the side of his nose and then placed his hands on the table, fingertips together, gathering his thoughts.  “I ask again, Herr Crawford.  Are you loyal to the organization?”

“Have I _ever_ had a choice?” Brad said through his clenched teeth. 

Schuldig felt the room freeze up for the most part.  Amlisch sat there, his creepy white eyes seeing nothing, a smirk on his face.   Berger, a Freshman when Brad was a Senior, was giving off the aura of a tiger with another tiger pissing around his territory.  Two other team leaders, closer to Amlisch’s age, were just as wary, but not disposed to give a crap about Crawford as a rival. 

Murmurs broke out, and Greifeld picked up the gavel, tapping it lightly on the block.  The room fell into silence.  “The Council has voted you absolute confidence,” he said.  “Are we correct in our thinking?”

Brad frowned at the file in front of him.  He was trapped, well and truly trapped. 

/He cannot prove it but he is dead certain you killed the Elders,/ Schuldig informed him. 

Brad looked up.  “I _want_ an explanation,” he put a finger on the file.    

“Naturally,” Greifeld allowed.  “We can speak privately after the meeting.  You’ve begun your investigation into the incidents at the school.”

“Of course…” Brad started to say.

Berger stood abruptly.  “Herr Greifeld, Rosen petitions the Council  for reconsideration for this assignment.”

Greifeld had to smack the gavel for order.  “ _Sit down_ , Herr Berger. You have been informed why this is impossible.”

“But _we_ are--,” Berger persisted.  Rosen was the dedicated school’s team, assigned to protect the organization’s heart, and deal with talents that got out of hand or rebelled.

“Sit down, Puppy,” Amlisch sneered from across the table’s spread. 

“Colonel Amlisch, please,” Greifeld reminded the older man just who was boss for the day.  “You have your orders, Herr Berger; your team will be leaving for England on schedule.”

Berger sat down, mad as hell.

/Braaaaad…../ Schuldig warned. 

Brad pushed his glasses up and his hand fell back past his jacket lapel to unbutton the one button.  He picked up a black folder from the second pile of two, and passed it to the person next to him.  Greifeld received it as handed and opened it to scan the report. 

Crawford opened the copy of the same report in front of him, frowned and removed his glasses, then reached into his jacket with a small frown as if he were going to clean them. 

Schuldig, intense with careful concentration, gave everyone but Brad a ‘senior moment’ of short term memory loss.

Berger gave a small grunt of surprise and fell face down on the table, a little trickle of red ran down his forehead between his staring blank eyes and then down his cheek to begin dripping into the dyed green hair spread on the table top. 

The room froze in their seats as their minds caught up with them.  Yuuji stifled a groan when he realized what had happened. 

Brad put the gun away and put his glasses back on.  “As I was about to say--we have concluded for now that the enemy has the ability to amp up certain emotions, causing underlying tensions to surface.  A sort of puppet master, with out the true ability of a telepath.  He is capable of concealing himself from Schuldig’s telepathy but not completely.  My thought is that he is not accustomed to working against other talent.”

“Crawford,” Greifeld said.

Brad looked up at him, politely interested. 

“Is there anyone else on the council that you would like to summarily execute?”

Brad looked thoughtful.  “No,” he said very pleasantly.  “Not at the moment, no,” he added. 

Greifeld hit a button on the intercom and spoke quietly.  Moments later a woman in a smock carrying a spray bottle and handful of cleaning cloths, followed by two men in white overalls pushing a huge laundry basked strode in.  The men hauled Berger out  of his chair, and tipped him into the basket, stuffing a stray leg in.  The woman spritzed the table with bleach water and wiped, then sprayed and wiped again, tossing the dirtied cloths in on top of Berger.  The clean up crew trundled the cart out as efficiently as they had come in. 

“Herr Holzweber…” Brad started to say.

“I object!” the man stood up from his seat prepared to go down fighting.  “I…”

SMACK came the gavel down. “Holzweber, sit down,” Greifeld said, patience obviously wearing thin.  “The council understands you had no guilt in this matter.”

/Muggle,/ Schuldig sneered.

/Schuldig, that’s 10 Euros in the Potter Pot,/ Brad thought back at him.

Schuldig pouted, then realized anyone might see and blanked his expression. 

“If I may,” Brad said, glancing around the room, then continuing.  “Naoe has compiled the list of students who were most affected and we intend to conduct interviews to determine more information on how this enemy works.  In the mean time, I have two new recruits working in the town.  Our target may have the advantage of some distance, but he can’t be that far away.”

“You’re sure of this?” Amlisch said archly. 

“Schuldig would have detected a talent such as yours, Colonel Amlisch,” Brad said. 

/Like a fucking bonfire,/ Schuldig thought. 

/Oh, fuck it,/ Brad concluded. 

Schuldig, caught out of step, nearly cost them this time.  He left off the room and focused tightly on Amlisch, who was just as startled when the telepath derailed him.  For once Amlisch’s blank eyeballs did not look so creepily out of place, though the blood filled one bright red first before leaking past his lower lid.

Brad set the gun on the table, this time, and turned a page in his report. 

Yuuji rolled his eyes and then got a dirty look from further up the table.  He collected himself and sat up straight.

Greifeld sighed audibly and pressed the button again.  This was going to be a long meeting if this kept up. 

After the minor interruption, Crawford concluded his report in the Council’s attentive silence, answered a few questions and was given the go ahead to continue in his investigation.

“Sarazawa Yuuji,” Greifeld stated.  “Explain yourself.”

/It was tea time and the Hare had just gone mad,/ Schuldig teased him. 

/Shut up, you,/ Yuuji stood, removing his hat and tucking it under his arm.  “Herr Council Leader, I have no explanation.  The explosion induced amnesia.  The report is accurate to the best of my ability.”

Greifeld studied him.  “According to Crawford the person responsible for indoctrinating you to the Kritiker organization had in his possession information previously part of research conducted by the Reich.”

Yuuji had no reaction, nor anything to say. 

“Your recovery is still proceeding?”Greifeld was getting just a tad frustrated.

“I have a lingering addiction to cigarettes, thanks to that bastard,” Yuuji said with a charming smile and offhanded tone. “And I would like my back pay.”

Chuckles broke out, with the few smokers in the room commiserating.  One pair of hazel brown eyes hardened.

/Oh mein gott, _that’s_ his old man?/ Schuldig blurted to Brad.

/Why the surprise?/ Brad asked. 

/He never gave anything away, not even when he saw him walk into the room,/ Schuldig was amazed at the man’s self control.

“You have recruited one of Kritiker’s agents,” Greifeld said.  “What was your decision based on in this?”

“Revenge, primarily.  And self defense.  They stole nearly three years of my life; I stole their best assassin,” Yuuji stated.  “Fujimiya Ran has a subconscious talent for not getting killed.  If you so much as think seriously about killing him, everything around you will go to hell to prevent it. I am now certain my records with the organization will show that I was assigned to eliminate the Fujimiya banking family upon leaving the middle east for Tokyo.  Even at _that_ distance, I suffered the backlash of his ‘luck’.  What are the percentages that I would end up living under the same roof with him and thus be at his mercy?”

The entire council was flummoxed. 

“Have you _tried_ to kill him at close range?” Greifeld asked.

“Yes,” Yuuji smiled ruefully.  “And I might add, so have Crawford and Schuldig, as well as the enemies of Kritiker’s Weiss.  Failing that, I recruited him.”

Murmers and arguments broke out.  Impossible.  Ridiculous,  Preposterous, Nonsense, were bandied about. 

“I have a more recent theory I have yet to put in the initial report,” Brad offered calmly.  “Fujimiya’s family may have an alien genetic influence similar to the creature I brought back from Shinjuku.”

Greifeld studied that report file for a few moments, while the council chatted quietly among themselves, some of whom were looking at Brad like he was more nuts than before. 

Sarazawa Ishida sat regarding his son with an un-readable face. 

Greifeld tapped the gavel.  “Dieter Schulder, you attempted to read this Fujimiya’s talent?”

Schuldig stood from habit.  “Yes, Sir,” he said, bright pink cheeked suddenly despite himself. 

_Dieter Schulder?_ Brad mouthed at him, a bit shocked.

/Shut up, Brad,/ Schuldig shot back at him. 

Brad sat back in his chair, covering a grin with his hand rubbing his cheek, then crossed his arms and the look he gave Schuldig promised merciless teasing at a later time. 

Schuldig tossed his hair back with a hand.  “I don’t agree with Herr Crawford.  The creature from Shinjuku does not register as being ‘there’ to my talent, nor to his precognitive abilities.  Fujimiya is vulnerable enough to my talent, and Crawford can read his movements in advance (he damned near gave Brad away, but caught himself and changed his wording).  It is more like a raving carnivore in there.  It comes charging up at you if you go too deep, as if it would consume you and there would be nothing left.  He has been unaware of this since his childhood and has only recently started to believe it may be possible.  His concern is that everyone around him dies. Which,” Schuldig shrugged, “Can be fairly true.  Anyone who wishes him potentially fatal harm is either badly injured or killed.”

“Which does not preclude my theory completely,” Brad said.  “We do not know the full extent of these creatures abilities.  But we did see what happened in Shinjuku.”

“I object!” Holzweber popped up again.  “Members of the Council this—lunatic—has unleashed this creature in the very center of our organization, leaving our future at its mercy!”

“Crawford?” Greifeld looked at him.

“The entity thrives on protecting a territory,” Brad said simply. “Anything under its auspices will be defended, which is quite possibly why the Japanese have worshiped their kind for most of the existence of the island’s culture.  You are aware that the royal family claims direct descent from these beings.”

“He’s given Rosencruz over to this creature,” Holzweber said in the voice of one chilled to the bone. 

“Which reminds me,” Brad handed over another file, this on clad in red.  “Frau Traugott has come up with some proposals for the more efficient and cost effective running of the school based on the original precepts.  The entity also directs the running of a major hospital in the Shinjuku Disaster Zone.  I was very impressed with the way the staff was run and various attacks on the facility were fended off.  Nagi included photos from his cell phone in the main report of our investigation.  The council is perfectly welcome to interview Frau Traugott at the school.”

“Herr Holzweber has a very serious accusation, Crawford. And frankly, I am quite alarmed myself.  Was this wise?” Greifeld asked, reaching for the red folder as it was handed his way. 

Brad looked at him gravely.  “The Elders planned for over a century to hand the entire planet over to some un-known demon or god they planned to raise based on some scratched up clay they were told was a spell in Tibet,” he said.  “Until I actually saw what happened to the Shinjuku region, precisely along the lines of the drawn municipal map, at the same time as the much vaunted alignment for the Elder’s ceremony, I did not believe any such thing was possible.  In retrospect, I think an officious little home body with a penchant for keeping a facility in the black on the books is fairly harmless.”

Holzweber sat down, frustrated as hell.

Greifeld looked over the proposals.  The council was getting itchy.  People shifted in chairs, comments were passed, someone sneezed.  Brad picked up his gun, and they all froze, but he was only putting it back in his shoulder holster and buttoning his jacket.

Greifeld’s expression went from skeptical to pleased agreement.  He nodded to himself, pursing his mouth a little.  “Interesting.  Herr Holzweber, you made read this at your leisure.  Council is dismissed.  I want the notes typed up and on my desk by tomorrow morning.  Crawford, if you will meet with me in the office?”

“Herr Greifeld,” the council secretary said deferentially but coolly.  “Regarding Colonel Amlisch and Herr Berger’s disposals; cremation with ceremony, or the chipper shredder?”

“Chipper shredder,” Greifeld said. “I never liked the man and Berger was a broody ass.  They’ll be much more useful as fertilizer than polluting the air any further with their presence.  Inform their teams the council will be re-assigning them.”

Brad collected his papers and put them back in his neat black briefcases.       

Sarazawa Ishida walked over to his slightly taller, lankier son.  “Yuu, your mother would like to see you,” he stated and then walked out with the others. 

“Oooh, what did you do?” Schuldig asked Yuuji. 

“Dieter,” Yuuji said, grinning at him.  “ _Dieter Schulder_.  Now I know how you got that ridiculous nickname.  Someone screwed up at roll call, didn’t they?”

Schuldig frowned dangerously at him.   

“Dieter,” Yuuji reached up and pinched his cheek, giving it a little wiggle.  “That’s just so _pwecious_ ,” he teased.  Then ducked and blocked as Schuldig took a swing at him. 

“Stand down, you two!” Brad said, his voice just sharp enough to bring them to heel.  Other members of the council were lingering outside the doors.  

“Don’t forget, your _mommy_ wants you,” Schuldig said meanly to Yuuji and went to stand beside Brad. 

“ _Dieter Schulder_ , how ever did you manage to keep that hidden from me for so long?” Brad snapped his briefcase closed and looked at him archly. 

“Leave it alone or I will tell Fujimiya what _you two_ get up to when he is being told otherwise,” Schuldig said.

Brad leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek Yuuji had left a bit bruised.  “I think it’s cute,” he said.  “But don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul you’re not the big bad wolf you pretend to be.”

Schuldig wanted to punch him, but that wouldn’t do much for his love life later, and merely gave him an evil scowl.

Then he realized something. 

Brad had kissed him—on the cheek—with the Council within viewing distance. 

He checked.  No one had seen, except one who thought it was odd that Brad would lean so close to speak to a telepath, having seen it from that angle.  Still, he had done it in public. Schuldig felt ridiculously pleased. 

 

 

 

 

 


	11. 11

Chapter 11

Brad sat down in the office guest chair; Greifeld naturally sat down behind the desk.  Things certainly had changed.  There was a painting on the wall, books on shelves, a plant in the corner.  Gone was the bare utilitarian emptiness the Elders insisted on.  The chair, while not luxurious, was basically comfortable, with arms to rest on and relax the tension in his shoulders. 

“You’re puzzled,” Greifeld said, with a slight smile, making himself comfortable in his own chair. “The Council decided unanimously we needed to lighten up.  You should have been at the wake,” he said grimly amused.  “It has been a long time since the organization had a blow out like that.”

“You’re an empath,” Brad said, knowing he had given nothing away physically. 

“It helps,” Greifeld admitted.  “But it doesn’t work over the phone, which is where most of my work is done these days.  And unfortunately, it makes me the one who gets stuck with being in charge--too many times running to be coincidence.  Tell me why this news upsets you so much?”

“Seriously?” Brad said in blunt disbelief.

Greifeld smiled mildly.  “Frankly I am surprised it took you this long.  Most people _are_ curious about their origins.”

Brad frowned. Not him.  He never wanted to think about them.  He had had no problem with being collected by Esset at the age of ten.  In fact, he had sat there in his room with his bag packed, waiting for the people with guns.  Being rid of his parents—well, those people who had _claimed_ to be his parents—had been more of a blessing than any of their vaunted church associations with the word.  Fundamentalist Christians, they had determined that his ‘problem’ was as much of the Devil as genetic.  They hadn’t attempted to kill him, but it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, either. 

Was it any wonder he felt more comfortable surrounded by psychopaths?  That he had felt it necessary to collect Naoe Nagi, who had had it far worse.

Greifeld drew a breath, sighing a curt little sigh.  “Where to begin?  You’ve read the file.”

“How?” Brad stated.  “How did this happen?  How did I end up with _those_ people?”

       *     *     *

Schuldig was waiting for him, leaning on the wall beside the door, when he came out.  The questioning look on his face matched the brush of his mind against Brad’s locked up one. 

“Don’t,” Brad said.

“But--,”

“You don’t need to know everything, _Dieter_ ,” Brad said, walking past him.

Schuldig scowled.  “Call me that one more time--,”

“And you’ll what?” Brad called his bluff.  “Where has Sarazawa gone?”

Schuldig was about to tell him he should know, but glanced around.  Who knew who might be picking this up.  “Off to see his Mommy, before she hunts him down and tears him a new one.  He will call.”

Brad smirked.  “Fujimiya may go into withdrawals.”

“Gott, I hope not,” Schuldig muttered.  “Why won’t you tell me?” he said with a little plea in his voice as they walked to the end of the entry hall to the doors.

“Because it is nothing that matters to me, and I do not want to be constantly reminded of it any more than you want to be called by your name.  Which is ridiculous, if you ask me.  If you do not want me to have you held down and tattooed across the chest with it, you will stop nagging me.”

“You wouldn’t,” Schuldig stated.

Brad half turned to him. “ _Really?_   The tattoo parlor where Sarazawa got his is right down the street,” he pointed.

They were at the bottom of the steps when two people approached them.  A dark haired, slender, fit woman, and a thuggish looking fellow with dyed blue hair who might have just as easily been made a skin head poster boy if not for Esset. 

“Crawford,” the man accused. 

“Sylvia,” Schuldig grinned.

The attractive Chinese woman glared at him coldly then turned her eyes back to Crawford.

“Geisel,” Brad said, his left hand gripping the brief case handle flexing, his right arm subtly limbering. 

“Murdering Berger was a bad idea!” Geisel snarled, an angry light in his eyes.  “The Three are no longer here to protect you.”

“Agent Lin, would you explain to Agent Geisel how precognition works?” Brad said, not even looking at her, and moved to step past him. 

Geisel caught his upper arm in a tight grip.

Brad looked at him again and spoke quietly.  “Your team leader fucked up.  He got killed.  Now you are fucking up. Perhaps there is a lesson there.”

“And believe me, Crawford knows all about fucking,” Sylvia said bitterly. 

Schuldig’s eyes widened a bit, his mouth opened.  You could hear the penny drop in a large empty, echoing concrete bunker.  He looked at Brad in stunned shock. 

Sylvia snatched Geisle’s arm.  “You would do best to back off, hot head,” she hissed at him.  “Even if you survive this fight, you’d be condemned by the Council.”

Geisle glared into Brad’s amber brown eyes, radiating heat that threatened to ignite, then shrugged Sylvia off and stomped away. 

Brad found Sylvia too close and looked down at her coldly.  “I suppose _you_ have a complaint as well?”

“Amlisch was a Cretaceous ass,” she sneered.  “But you dumped Sergei and me on our own with that stunt, Crawford.”

“You’ll be re-assigned,” he said. 

“Maybe you should accept responsibility,” she smiled at him coldly.  “I hear you lost your hunter,” she reached up to run a finger along his lapel.  “You’re short an agent.  I’m free,” she cooed up at him, dark eyes sparkling.

Schuldig’s brain had thawed from the icy shock he’d just had, _and that hand needed to be broken_ , but before he could translate that into motion, Brad swiped her hand away from himself.  “No,” he stated.  “Not interested.  Not now, not ever.” He moved past her to stride away.

Schuldig pulled himself together to follow Brad, but Sylvia caught _his_ arm now.  Maybe it was national arm grabbing day, he thought. 

“I hope you’re happy, you little rat,” she hissed up at him.

This was unfair, but he did what he did best when bullied.  He grinned.  “Oh very,” he said.  “And you’re right,” he leaned close enough to breathe on her cheek.  “He is very, _very_ good in bed, and I used every trick you taught me.  Have a nice day.” He drew away twiddling his fingers good-bye at her, and turned to follow Brad. 

     *     *     * 

“So,” Schuldig said in the SUV.

“Not up for discussion,” Brad said. 

Schuldig sighed.  “Look, there is Fujimiya and Tot.”  He saw them standing outside an antique shop, pretending to ogle the items in the window.

“Which is why I took this route,” Brad said, signaling to pull over.  “Let Fujimiya know they are not to approach, and that Yuuji is off to his parents for the evening.”

Schuldig did so.  “Fujimiya is not happy.  What else is new?  They have seen a few people that looked at them a little too long, but four were ours, so it’s up for grabs.  Maybe a red headed and a blue headed Japanese is strange?”

“Tell them to continue until evening and then come back to the school,” Brad said. “And yes, you can have them bring take out,” he added in a drone.

“Fujimiya says he will find something edible,” Schuldig informed him.  “Should I be scared?”

Brad laughed softly.  “Pork roast and mushroom, pine nut pilaf.”

“Ah,” Schuldig said.  “That I can deal with.”  He hesitated.  Then spoke again.  “Mein mann,” he laid a hand on Brad’s thigh, shutting out the world. 

Brad was getting them back into traffic. Once he had done so, he said, “What now, Schuldig?”

“Everything,” he said.  “Just—everything.  It is good, no?”

“It is good, yes,” Brad said. 

Schuldig settled back in the seat to just let his mind rest for a bit.

     *     *     *        

“Something has happened at the school,” the man reported into his phone.  He lifted his binoculars again.  “There are people there, but it’s like someone dropped a box over the whole place, I can’t sense anyone there now.  It happened twenty minutes ago and shows no sign of lifting.”

“Something technological?  A disrupter field?”

“It feels—organic somehow.  But—it’s difficult to describe.  It could be one of their elites, but no one new has arrived since yesterday.”

“Continue observing.  A team is being gathered.” 

“Yes,” the man said and closed his call.  When the three men had gone over the grounds yesterday, he had felt something off.  They were defensive, aware of his presence, he was certain of that.  But why would it take so long for this to occur if it was one of them? 

Sending him against Esset’s talents with what little training he’d had after the implant surgery was a gamble; but as long as he stayed out of their reach, he felt he would be safe.   They had not expected Esset to shut down the whole school and bring in the elites so swiftly, but now here they were.  It had to be the Black team from Japan. 

Strange.  Esset had been dealt a heavy blow, yet their leaders being destroyed had  done nothing weaken the organization.  Personally, he was not sure that anything would have much of an effect, not without an all out war.  

    *     *     *

“There’s no question,” Honjou said. “It’s Ran.  Fujimiya Ran.  And that guy is Kudoh Yohji, he was in Weiss, too,” he tapped the screen over the blond man’s image from the Lufthansa security camera.

“But why would they be with Esset agents?” Masuyama glanced up at him then back at the screen. 

“Who knows?” Honjou frowned.  “But it does explain where they went.  Krypton Brand can have it, I don’t want to go hunting down that nut.  You can watch all the samurai movies you want, but you don’t know what it’s really like to see someone cut up with a sword until you get splashed with blood and guts.”

 “He was just a boy when you worked with him, Knight.  A boy with murdered parents and a sister in a coma.  Frightened people lash out wildly.”

“He’s a cold hearted killer, Queen,” Honjou stated.  “I never once saw him in fear of anything.  Psychopath.”

“Speaking of the sister,” Masuyama said, “there’s been no sign of her.  She disappeared from the hospital a few days after the Shinjuku disaster, supposedly being transferred to a new place.  She never arrived.”

“Not our problem,” Honjou straightened up, putting his hands on his hips, looking at the still from the video.  “Curious Kudoh Yohji is with him, though.  Esset grabbing _two_ of our guys at once is a bit too hard to swallow.”

Queen pursed her lips a little.  “Unless…”

He looked down at her.  “Hmm?” he prompted after a long moment.

“Kudoh was the amnesia guy, wasn’t he?” she said carefully.

Honjou frowned.  “I remember something about it.  He blanked out his girlfriend being killed or something.  Yeah—he could never remember the face of the men who gunned her down, or the case they were supposed to be working on when it happened.”

Queen tipped her head just a little to the side, her permed waves sliding prettily along her chin.  She frowned.  “It’s kind of stupid, but what if he was—what if Kudoh was Esset all along?”

Honjou laughed.  “I doubt it.  The one time I worked with him, he was just a lame drunk with an eye for the dames.  He couldn’t pull off  a job without sinking into a week's long depression and a barrel of Whiskey.  Those Esset guys are cold as ice and just as tight.  I used to wonder why Kritiker ever bothered to keep Kudoh on the books.”

*     *     *

There was a mirrored line of hard wooden chairs dragged out from the library in the hallway outside the school chancellor’s office.  In the chairs were nearly two dozen of the collegiate level students, in various stages of uncomfortable.  

The snap crack of their standing to attention was barely expected by Brad who had his mind on other things. 

He frowned at them.  Schuldig grinned as he picked up their quivering thoughts of horror.  This was it, the end was near, come the apocalypse, ‘mommy’, and one very sad little ‘oh shit, why can’t it be old Holzy?’

“Sit down,” Brad said, continuing on to the office door and opening it. 

Frau Traugott sat there at the secretary’s desk.  “Your suspects, Herr Crawford.”

“Witnesses,” he corrected. 

“Let me pick who comes in,” Schuldig pleaded when the solid door was shut.  “Please, please, please?” he bounced on his toes.

Brad looked at him as if he had gone mad yet again.  “Down, Schuldig.”

The telepath pouted.  “But I want to torture them.”

“We are questioning them to determine the extent of the enemy’s powers, not punishing them.”

“Oh, but just a little,” Schuldig held up his thumb and forefinger together in almost a pinch.  “What is the point of being the bad guys if you take all the fun out of it.”

“Herr Schuldig, these are students of this school,” Frau Traugott said gently, her eyes dangerous behind the humanizing glasses.

He gave a little scream, having forgotten she was there yet again. 

“Did you have another coffee while I was in with Griefeld?” Brad asked him.

“Well, yes,” the volatile red head admitted.  “Just two little ones.  The jet lag…” The ‘two little ones’ had been double shot espresso, but they were still technically ‘little’, and at the moment, kicking in big time.

“Shut up, and go pee,” Brad said.  “Give me a moment to arrange my thoughts,” he told the woman behind the desk, and went through to the office. 

Nagi was behind the desk, feet up, playing his video game thing. “Yo,” he said, eyes intent on the destruction on screen. 

Oh what a far cry from the military precision of the greeting in the outer hall.  “Shift it, Naoe,” Brad said, smacking his half boot on the side as a warning.

Nagi slowly pulled his feet down and stood up, killing the last of the aliens or what ever on his screen.  Then he went to sit on one of the short couches by the french doors. 

“You are not going to sit there and play _that_ while I am interrogating the students,” Brad started emptying out his briefcase on the desk, pulling out his lap top and opening it to power it up, then sitting down. 

Nagi rolled his eyes and got off his butt to go out the doors into the garden.  The sound got louder as he turned it up to hear outside.

Personally, Brad thought the ratta-tat-tat and explosions of the game would add an element of mildly distracting stress to the situation and let it stand as was.  He sat down and spread out the files. 

Schuldig stepped out of the Chancellor’s private bathroom and shut the door on the filling toilet tank behind himself.  “Can I at least play with my gun suggestively?  I’ll take the bullets out, I swear.”

“Behave,” Brad shot him a wry smile.  “You’ll be too busy rummaging through their skulls to be bored,” he pushed the button on the intercom.  “Send the first one in.”

 

 


	12. 12

The last of the students who walked in was Martz, the graduate student leader.

“Sit,” Brad said dully, going over the report one more time.

Martz sat. “May I say, It is an honor, Herr—“

“Shut up, Martz,” Brad said. “Schuldig,” he motioned toward the young man.

“Braaaaaaiiiinnnzzzzzz,” Schuldig twitched and drooled, raising his hands in a claw like clamp to grab Martz’s head. 

Martz was frozen in horror. 

Brad slapped the folder down and glared at his obnoxious lover. ‘ _Perhaps I should have him fixed.  Maybe that would calm him down,’ he thought._

“Just kidding,” Schuldig said, patting his chin with a handkerchief. “See, that is the problem with sensitives.  Over sensitive.  Now relax, Martz, we are only going to ask you questions and I will do a bit of checking around _in_ your head to see if I can pull up anything more clearly.” He smoothed down Martz’s short hair and patted his cheek, (which creeped the poor guy out even more). 

“Your theory that the whole situation was the result of a ‘puppet master’ of some kind has proved invaluable,” Brad said. 

Martz smiled smugly, thinking highly of himself, “Thank you, Herr Cra---,”

“Shut up, Martz,” Brad said dully.  Long day was long.  He pushed up his glasses and hit the intercom button.  “Frau Traugott,”

“Yes, Herr Crawford?”

“Would you kindly bring me a coffee?” It was somewhere neutral between a request and an order, and he knew they were both playing that game.  Either she would flat out say no, or acquiesce because she was going that way anyway. 

“I would have to—well, you forbade it,” she said, negotiating while she had the upper hand.  The issue was clear.  No duplicates, no coffee run.

“I changed my mind.  But no more than three.” He _really_ wanted that coffee.  Who the hell really cared if people noticed that Frau Traugott was suspiciously in two places at once? 

“As you wish, Herr Crawford.”

/I will strangle you if that thing jumps out at me all over the place,/ Schuldig warned. 

/Oh, get over it./ Brad warned.  “Alright, Martz, when did you first notice the strange behavior on campus?  Just start at the beginning.  Schuldig will stop you if he needs to dig further, don’t resist.  Most telepaths can’t help themselves when they are on a trail.”

Martz swallowed.  “Yes, Sir,” he said, warily eyeing the red head.

Five minutes later, Frau Traugott came in carrying a tray with a cup of  coffee and a couple of butter almond cookies on a plate and demurely set them down at Brad’s elbow.

“Thank you,” he said. 

She smiled the glittering evil smile of one who had won the battle and turned and marched out, shutting the door quietly behind her. 

Schuldig who was standing behind Martz where the man could not see, shuddered as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water on him. 

Brad then realized he should have sent Nagi for the coffee and sighed heavily.  “Continue,” he said.

*     *     *

Aya had a moment when he realized he was enjoying himself.  Issued cameras from the school’s stock, he and Tot had been exploring the little skiing/hiking city for hours, while keeping an eye out for any unusual attention.  The problem being Tot’s bright blue hair and while she had toned her fashion of the day down a bit, a bit was not much.  She acted like a five year old.  Having been fairly young himself when his sister was five years old, he had no coping skills for this, other than to remind her quietly to tone it done for stealth’s sake. 

Like his sister, she was joyous.  Unlike his sister, she did not tease him, and for that he was grateful.  Aya-chan had always homed right in on his shyness.  Tot being in her own world, she only went on the attack at all when she was literally on the attack. 

Hours after being reluctantly assigned to this, something clicked into place. He decided he did not at all mind being “Aya-ni-chan”ed by this moonchild.  It felt—dare he admit it, good.  Close to normal.  His social position re-instated.  It was the strange feeling he had had briefly with Sakura until she miss-interpreted it.  Tot did not want to imitate his little sister to be a substitute for her.  She was simply Tot, or Totto, because her name was startling to the German speakers around him.  They seemed to think she was some Idoru on tour most of the time, so he went with that. 

So, Yuuji had gone to see his parents. 

Aya thought about that.  His feelings were mixed.

Yuuji had admitted his parents were ‘ _not happy_ ’ about his inclination to the male side of happily ever after, but they were also practical about it.  Maybe too practical.  Aya was irritated to think that not only had _Kudoh Yohji_ spread himself wide and thin over Japan, but there could quite well be a herd of little green eyed blond kiddies around here somewhere, popped out by women who had for what ever reason opted for in-vitro. 

In a way it was hysterical.  This gay man had probably been responsible for more offspring than a normal straight man would have hoped to be without having a harem to support.  So _wrong!_

Aya decided to file that under the multitude of things he just did not want to deal with when it came to Yuuji.  He had known what he was getting into when he grabbed it, he reminded himself. 

*     *     *

Sarazawa Chieko was a five foot five athletic woman with chapatsu dyed hair to hide her few strands of grey.  Said hair was cut into a mid neck bob, framed bright hazel eyes, and any man who had a look at her quickly labeled her trouble but maybe the kind of trouble he wouldn’t mind. 

She on the other hand would prove that assumption dangerously wrong.  She had met her husband in martial arts class.  No other suitors were welcome.  

“Mum, are you getting shorter?” Yuuji said in surprise.

She smacked him a light slap on the face.  “Is this how you great me, distorter of my uterus?  Destroyer of my sleep? Ruiner of my figure?  Kicker of my kidneys?  Stomper on my bladder?”

“Okay, okay, for the _billionth_ time, forgive me for being such a bad fetus!” he bowed deeply and humbly.  (They had decided he was a gymnast from conception, the way he’d acted up in there.)

She bonked him on the head with a fist.  “Stand up and hug me, you bastard.”

He straightened to grab her, bear hug her and spin her around then set her down on the small porch.  “You’ve gained a few pounds,” he complained with a merry light in his eyes. 

She punched him in the arm.  “You’ve gotten _weak_ ,” she accused.  “Probably too much being _dead_!” she was suddenly fierce.

“Yeah, about that…” he said. 

“My little miracle,” she caressed his cheeks, starting to tear up. 

“Mum, don’t start,” he warned. 

She caught his hand and dragged him into the house, wiping her eyes with the back of her other hand.  “Debrief over lunch, you look thin. And when are you going to get a hair cut.  You’re too old for that girly-look.”

“Well _who’s_ genetics is that to blame for?” Yuuji picked up their old argument.  

“Oh, I have to show you all the new pictures!  Fourty Eight was born just the other day,” she half turned to tell him, dragging him into the kitchen.  “Nine pounds even.  Another perfect little baby boy.  Tell _that_ to the other grandmothers in the market check out line, Hah!” she stated. 

“Rather _not_ know, Mum,” he drawled a warning. 

“Of course being _Gay_ and having no responsibilities, you wouldn’t.  Ah so carefree and _careless_ ,” she hit that last word sharply.  “But you were dead and what were your poor parents supposed to do?  Soon all this (she waved her hand in the air to indicate the house and general estate) will go to some lucky little grandbaby, skipping over his _worthless_ father.”

“Forty eight grand babies is not worthless,” he countered, annoyed in the old familiar way. 

“Don’t argue with your mother, you lazy, heartless child.”

“You cheat in every fight!” he accused, sitting down at the kitchen table.  “Always pulling the ‘mother card’.” He looked at her, standing there, arms crossed, looking down at him as she were trying to determine what to do with him next as always.  He knew he was a work in progress in her eyes.  She had a bit of ‘character’ forming around her eyes when she smiled, but not much.  There had been days when he could swear he looked older than her.  But that had been the booze and lack of sleep.  “So, Mommy Dearest, what’s for lunch?”

“Your favorite.  Fried everything,” she assured him.  “You talk, I will cook.”

“Can I help?” he offered.

“Go back to hell.” She started raiding the refrigerator.

“You would turn this into new ammo,” he said disapprovingly. 

“Talk, or I will make you,” she shook a skillet at him threateningly and banged it onto the stove top on the island in the middle of the kitchen.

For the next two hours, he talked.  He told her everything.  They ate stir fry, noodles and Tempura, laughed and had a good cry, and he finally felt that it was over.  The whole damned mess was over.  He was home. 

He was sitting there quite for too long, looking into the half empty glass of beer.

“You need a nap.  Jet lag and then all this,” his mother said. 

“You didn’t turn my room into a work out center?” he asked, and drained the beer.

She tipped her head a little, “I tried to get over it and turned it into a guest room, but fail much.  I just couldn’t bring myself to throw out all your junk.”

“That junk you made me work hard for,” he reminded. 

“So go take a nap, worthless child,” she stood up to put both their glasses in the dishwasher. 

“Mum, damned near thirty,” he quarreled as he stood up, very sleepy indeed and not putting it past her to have slipped him something.  But then again, her cooking and the beer and everything else and just being _home._

She turned to blink at him.  “When did you get older than me?”

“Very funny,” he told her.  “Are you still bribing the optometrist to keep Pop’s vision just blurry enough to go along with your perfidious lies.”

She took a palm shot at squishing his nose.  “You are sworn to silence,” she stated, then reached around to  spank him on the butt.  “Go to your room, and don’t come out until I say so.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and hugged her.  “Mum,” he said.  “All that mushy stuff.”

Her face squished in his chest, she hugged him back.  “All that mushy stuff.” She pushed him away.  “Get the hell out of my sight.”

He let her go and went to his old room.  The door was standing open, with the window cracked open a little to air  it out. Oh yeah, fail much.  His grandmother’s last quilt was on the bed, and everything was neatly tidy, but his trophies were even more elaborately displayed.  Cased now behind glass with bright brass hinges, they hung on the wall opposite an array of photos of his winning them framed in matching wood. 

And one photo—heartbreakingly—that caught his eyes like a beacon.  He and Brad all of twelve, arms around each other’s shoulders, leaning a little too close into focus and grinning for the camera.  His fingers held up in a peace sign, Brad’s in a mock gun point.  A summer’s day at the pool--their first summer caught in amber; fleeting childhood’s glorious golden sun lighting their features, the faint echo of their laughter still ringing from it after all this time. 

He flopped down on the once coolest thing ever, now old fashioned ‘captain’s bed’ with it’s spindle ship’s wheel frame and drawers underneath and put his arms behind his head to stare at that piece of evidence there amid the others on the wall.  When he fell asleep a moment later, his dreams were replays of memories he had filed away far too deep. 

*   *   *   

Martz all but bolted from the room, maintaining some dignity only by faking it.

Schuldig rested his rump on the edge of the desk, ankles and arms crossed.  He half turned to look down at Brad who was studying his laptop’s screen.  “Now what?”

“Now we take what little we have and hunt our disrupter down,” Brad said. 

“Well, duh,” Schuldig said sarcastically.  “Who could be behind this?  Can’t you use your talent?”

Brad looked up at him.  “You want  me to pick out one specific fish in from seven oceans worth?  Do you know why precognitives go mad?”

“Be-cause…Telepaths drive them that way?” Schuldig hazarded.

“Bingo,” Brad said dully sarcastic. “They go mad because if they are very good, they see everything.  I go diving in one little pool at a time, where I know I can come up for air.  The analogy of time being like water is very accurate for my purposes.”

Schuldig pursed his lips slightly in thought.  “Well, who hates us?”

“Over a dozen organizations, none of whom we have any evidence of their having ‘talents’ on the books,” Brad was scrolling through his notes.  “So lets start with what this person aimed at.  The equivalent of a pack of ravenous wolves suddenly going vegan.  It’s a practice run, it has to be.  Why so obvious?” He frowned. 

“Maybe they are stupid and clumsy, maybe they are just slapping us in the face?”

“A challenge?”

The red head shrugged one shoulder, tipping his head to it.  “A challenge to draw us out?  Well, maybe not _us_ , but at least someone from Esset.”

Brad drummed his fingers lightly on the edge of the laptop, rubbing his chin with the other hand.  “If I had to throw a dart--,” he fell silent for a long moment, and Schuldig knew he had gone for a ‘swim’.  “Something is still brewing from Japan.”

“That huge mess Detective Fancy Coat mentioned?” Schuldig remembered, putting aside his thoughts of skinny dipping with remarkable self control. 

Now Brad made up his mind.  “Pursue that.” He hit the intercom.  “Frau Traugott, I want everything and anything Esset has on Kritiker and their affiliations, please.  And have you settled in?”

“Environmental control is established,” she reported.  Then her voice shifted to the multi-tonal weirdness.  “We are pleased.”

Schuldig shuddered again.

“Better you than me,” Brad said. “Demonstrate your control over the physical property for me, will you?”

The windows of the room unlatched, opened wide, then shut and latched again, save for the french doors.

“Thank you,” Brad said.  “That will be all for now.  As soon as you have the reports, notify me.”

“Yes, Herr Crawford,” her voice was human again. 

*     *     *

Aya set the big paper carry bag of take out on the kitchen counter.  Nagi helped with the plates and setting the industrial microwave to warm things up without actually nuking them to hell. 

“What is this?” Schuldig indicated the pile of limp oily greens in a bowl set before him.

“Warm spinach salad tossed with sweet onions, slivered toasted almonds, with a mustard and balsamic sauce,” Aya consulted the receipt. 

“Was it supposed to be warm, or did you just put it in the microwave by mistake?” Schuldig poked at it with his fork, ready to shoot at anything that leapt out at him.  He still had nightmares of Shinjuku. 

Aya shot him a look that would have castrated if not killed. 

Schuldig impaled his salad with a fork and ate a mouthful.  “It’s good,” he said in mild surprise. 

“Fussy eater,” Brad said, tucking into his roast pork slices. 

“They say pork tastes like human being,” Schuldig looked at the meat now on his fork with some speculation. 

Brad held another chunk of pork up on his fork and bit it at him. 

Schuldig gave him an arch look, then ate his own forkful, “You’re horrible,” he said after a few chews. 

“Shut up and eat your ersatz human,” Brad advised.  

Nagi decided to save his meat for last, when this mockery was over and he could eat without gagging. 


	13. 13

Yuuji showed up the next morning, dropped off by his father on his way to work.  “This place isn’t so creepy quiet now,” he commented, taking off his uniform hat as he walked into the Chancellor’s outer office.  “Something is different.” He looked around the room, puzzled.  Nothing had changed, but it seemed a bit brighter, a little warmer somehow. 

“I try not to think about it,” was Schuldig’s response as he looked up from the report he was reading while sitting on the edge of what was now Frau Traugott’s desk.  The ‘creature’ was off somewhere, poking and prying into things.   “Who do _you_ think would be connected to our activities in Japan and want to bother Esset’s little wasp nest?”

Yuuji shrugged, “Kritiker got stung badly enough.  A mass culling like that that might have set off Interpol. They only collect information to share, but anyone that information gets to might have taken offense.  What have you done with Aya?” he added with slight suspicion evident.

“He is in the courtyard, having quality time with that big damned sword,” Schuldig drawled. 

“I think I’ll avoid him for now,” Yuuji said, not wanting to loose bits of his uniform.  “Brad in there?” he pointed to the closed inner office door.

“Phone calls,” Schuldig said.  “Bother him and I have orders to shoot you,” he looked up from the paper work.  “How was the whole going home thing?”

“ ** _I_** am under orders to not die again until well after they have, or they will kill me,” Yuuji said, taking a seat in one of the armchairs.  “My father investigated my ‘death’ at the time, and was never satisfied.  As for how I got to Tokyo, I had asked for the assignment to Japan, I remember it now.” He had wanted to meet up with Brad there. It had hit him on waking this morning, quite a chunk of it all coming back. Their plans.  He ignored the urge to get drunk and smoke a pack or two, and not the remains of Kudoh, but his _own_ inner whining as well.

“Well there is that theory proved.  I wonder why Nagi and I didn’t get some sort of backlash?” Schuldig frowned, thinking about it. “No, wait, I think we have.” He frowned again, this time focused on the blond. 

Yuuji raised an eyebrow, “Do not even start.  It will only lead to tears.  Any progress on the creepy attack?”

“You slack off to go play prodigal son while we work, and then you want to check our work?” Schuldig half grinned at him in a challenging wolfish leer. “Nervy.” 

“I got an earful from the Pater re the council’s quandary,” Yuuji informed him. “Now that I have risen from the dead, I am expected to be even more of a credit to the family for some stupid reason.” His father had almost, _almost_ broke down a little bit.  Over a bottle of old sake, there had been a slight shine moisture in the eyes, a faint deepening of the lines of his cheeks, a slight wibble of the lower lip, then even more iron clad silence.  No wonder his mother was such a force of nature, his old man was basaltic rock.  Yuuji _had_ thought of ruining it all by totally glomping him and sobbing all over him, but his father probably would have neatly snapped his neck and held the funeral again the next day.  

Schuldig grinned even more,  “Well, now that we have decided to behave ourselves like good little minions of evil, perhaps things will settle down for them.”

“Esset is not the center of the universe, as much as we would all like to think it,” was Yuuji’s opinion.

“The Elders pissed off quite a lot of people--many who are taking it out on the organization.  Farblos and Rosen’s remaining members are not happy and they are letting everyone know about it.  You would think they would shut up and be grateful. Berger was par for the course, but Amlisch was a real piece of work.  The kind of guy who gave Esset a bad name in the first place.  Prahanov is going to stir things up in order to make himself a big man.  He will get shot that way,” Schuldig warned, his eyes back on the file. “This creeper, he is male, that is all I have I am certain of.  You will go over the photos Tot and Fujimiya took yesterday and see if anything strikes you, since you are the one trained to spot the iffy types.”

“Brad’s talent isn’t working on this?” Yuuji was a bit surprised.

“Nope.  He says this person’s modus is too oblique to stand out yet.  That is the thing here, our enemy is passive aggressive.  He gets others to do his dirty work, but I have a feeling that not is his ability to shield very strong, but that his talent is very weak.  We have to draw him out, force him to light up the little bulb on the map. And there is something—not right about it,” blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Yuuji looked puzzled at him. 

“I don’t know.  After Shinjuku, I question myself too much, but something is—odd about it.  It doesn’t feel right.”

“We’ll catch him,” Yuuji shifted in his seat to stand up.  “Either he will be hunted down, or come too close and get caught,” he gave the red head a serious look as he stood.  “Now, I am going to go in there and you are _not_ going to shoot me.”

“Don’t try your piss weak power on me,” Schuldig said.

Yuuji walked over and leaned very close, and said something that left the German blushing furiously, then turned and walked to the door and went in, shutting it with a decided click. 

“Damn it,” Schuldig muttered under his breath.  “I knew that three way was a bad idea.”

*     *     *

Brad looked up, “No one takes my orders seriously.”

“Well, you know that thing…”Yuuji excused, mainly to spare Schuldig a good yelling at.

“Yes, I _saw_ that, and it’s inappropriate to use that on the clock.  There is a reason homosexuality is discouraged in most organizations, along with all the other inappropriate liaisons.”

Yuuji smiled coyly.

“Stop that,” Brad said, and looked back down at the computer screen.      

“Mum wants you to come to diner.  I wouldn’t.  She’ll most likely drug you and add you to her evil plans to take over the world with a hoard of boys from Brazil.”

Brad glared at him.

 _Whoops,_ Yuuji regretted that one almost instantly. 

“Frau Traugott!” Brad snapped.

“Yes, Herr Crawford?” the creature answered through the intercom. 

“Tell Fujimiya his boyfriend is back, and to come to the office _now_.”

“Yes, Herr Crawford.”

“That was a dirty trick,” Yuuji complained.  

“Your bed,” Brad stated unsympathetically.  “ _My_ whole life has been a dirty trick.”

Yuuji sighed and sat down to wait for his personal albatross to show up.  “So where are these photos I am supposed to look at?”

“Check out a laptop like a normal human being, and I’ll send you the files.”

“Why so cranky, Sweetheart?” Yuuji asked coaxingly.

Brad scowled at the mess on the desk in front of him. “I am the most powerful precognative in the world; I have the top ranking telepath who isn’t on his way to losing his mind; and I _still_ can’t catch this bastard!” he announced angrily.

“We’ve only just started,” Yuuji soothed.  “And the council doesn’t know that Shuu undid your block,” he reminded.

Brad shoved his hair back out of his lenses.  “A fucking meddler, that’s all this person is!  A _medler_!  It’s like sending a cockroach into a lion’s den!  What good is all this power if I can’t just smack the damned thing because it’s hiding in a crack!”

Aya came in before Yuuji could take a step toward Brad to calm him down.  Instead, he caught Aya by the elbow, spun him around and shoved him right back out again, shutting the door and turning the old fashioned key to lock it.  Then he went to lean over the desk to look into Brad’s eyes.  “You’re letting the stress run you.  Take a few deep breaths and set it all aside for a little while.  I know you want to get this over with so you can get the hell out of here, but don’t go slamming into glass doors.”

Brad took off his glasses and ran his hand over his face, wincing at the stabbing headache he had been fighting for hours.  “Pills,” he stated.

“Where are they?” So, he was back on them again? Or had he never stopped taking the prescription that kept his mind focused?

“Nagi,” Brad said, sitting back and closing his eyes. 

“You should keep them on you, idiot,” Yuuji told him, going to the door and wrenching the key, unlocked it.  “Schuldig, get Nagi in here with the pills Brad’s taking,” he shut the door again. 

“I hate depending on them,” Brad said, not moving.  “You know that.”

“You can’t function when you’re like this. And is it normal?”

Brad opened his eyes, frowning.  “Normal for being back here.”

“Psychosomatic, or our meddler?” Yuuji asked, stepping behind his chair to lay his hands on Brad’s temples, basically holding his head for him, taking the weight off his neck.  “Just relax,” he said.  “I’ve got you.”

Brad sighed, “This is stupid.”

“No it’s not, you just don’t want to admit that it works.  I’ll hold you until the pills work,” Yuuji said softly.  “Stop fighting it, you know it works.  It doesn’t make you weak to have help.”

“It’s just a headache,” Brad protested.

“And this is just love, so shut up and take it like a man,” Yuuji started to massage Brad’s temples. 

Nagi tried the door, and found it locked.  The key turned, and he came in with a bottle of water and the pills.  “Is this part of the attack?” he asked.  “He hasn’t had one of these in months.”

“It’s just stress,” Brad said, holding out a hand for the pill.

Nagi put it in his hand and then uncapped the water bottle for him. 

“Give me those,” Yuuji held out his hand for the pill bottle.

“No,” Brad said.  “Nagi’s in charge of medicine and in charge he stays.”

“But you should…”

“No.” Brad stated. 

“You’re not going to become an addict,” Yuuji went back to his massaging. 

Nagi ducked out rather than become the bone of contention. 

“Don’t play your bossy tricks with me, Sarazawa,” Brad warned, leaning into the hands caressing his aching head.  “I’m calling Schuldig in to run a check, so don’t slam the door on him.”

Schuldig came in, closing the door quietly behind himself.  Surveying the scene, he said, “So now even your headaches are cheating on me.”

Brad smiled a little, looking at him.  “Do your job, telepath. Is this meddling or just stress?”

Schuldig came closer and motioned for Yuuji to back off.  “I need to be alone with him in there, not dealing with screening you out.”

Yuuji let go of Brad’s head.  Brad felt as if it were going to fall off his neck for a moment, he had been so relaxed despite the migraine like pain.  Schuldig put a hand on his on the desk and focused.

“Scheisse!” he exclaimed as the ‘other’ slithered away from him like a greased up ferret.  He pursued as far as he could, sending the pain along with it. 

*     *     *

The agent, one Thomas Ealdwin by name, winced as the pain hit the part of his brain connected to the tiny amplifier.  The bare wire-like electric shock, a deadman switch, made his eyes roll up in his head. The connection was cut, the other mind pursuing him dropped away.  He lay there where he had fallen from the chair in the hotel room, basically tasered, until his body regained its self. 

“The telepath again,” he said aloud to make sure his mouth still worked with his brain, though his limbs were still numb.  “He’s getting closer.”

*     *     *

“Get me the sensitive,” Schuldig ordered.

“Frau Traugott, are you there?” Yuuji asked raising his voice.

“Always, Sarazawa-san,” she answered in Japanese, and he realized he had mixed the Japanese question with the German name. 

“Have the sensitive, who ever that is, come to the office, would you?” he confined himself to German.

“That would be Obergefreiter Martz,” she responded.  “I will contact him.” 

Brad had his head down on the desk.  “Fuck,” he stated.  “What came first, the headache or the back door into my god damned mind?”

Schuldig had his hands on Brad’s shoulders, rubbing them gently, working his way up the back of his neck.  “Probably the headache came from fighting off the influence unconsciously.  Your mind is tied up in knots.  This person is not a telepath, your mind was only reacting to his interference.”

Aya opened the door and looked in, “Can I come in now?” he asked. 

Yuuji sighed and turned to him.  “You might as well.  Leave the door open, let the air go through.  Someone has gone nuts with the furniture polish and window cleaner in here.”

“It does smell rather like a hospital in here,” Schuldig said.

“Show Sarazawa the photos you and Tot took, Fujimiya,” Brad did not raise his head.  “Maybe he can spot something.  Why Martz, Schuldig?”

“I want to show him what I felt in that person’s mind.  Maybe he can hunt the bastard down,” Schuldig said. 

“What was it?” Yuuji asked, half turning to look at him. 

“A chip,” Schuldig stated.  “Some sort of computerized augmentation.  The closer I got, the more of a hold I got, the more this thing put out a shock.  Just enough to break the connection.”

*     *     *

An hour later, a briefed but mystified Martz looked at Aya, who came back to the Chancellor’s office now clad in his ‘mission outfit’, black t-shirt, black jeans, biker’s buckled up boots, long black leather coat and wearing his sword and gloves.  “Um…” 

“Do as you’re told, Martz,” Brad ordered the young man sharply. 

“But he’s wearing a very large sword.  That’s going to be rather obvious, isn’t it?”

All of them looked at _him_ ; dressed in the school’s black uniform with its  ‘Security’ patches and insignia all too deliberately similar to the original one. 

He licked his lips and cleared his throat, then put his peaked hat back on and saluted smartly, “Of course, Sir,” he nodded to Aya to follow him. 

He paused at the door to half turn back.  “Does he speak German?” he said hesitantly. 

“You only need one word,” Yuuji said.  “Kill.”

Martz wondered what the joke was when they broke out laughing, then looked at Aya who was stone faced and looking at _him_ as if he had a butcher’s cut chart marked out on him.  He motioned.  “Come.”

Aya decided he did not want any conversation with this person, and even more so when he saw the conveyance the security guard lead him to.  

A tiny little Smart car. 

He sighed and unbuckled his sword so he could stuff it in sideways.  Yuuji was going to pay dearly for this. 

*    *     *

“I worry for that boy,” Schuldig said, sitting his butt once again on the edge of the desk despite all the times he had been asked not to.

“You’re younger than him,” Brad pointed out.

“Not mentally,” Schuldig said, his tone of voice a clear indication he was in the mood for gossip.  “He still…”

“No one wants to know,” Brad stated firmly.  “Frau Traugott, you did not notice the interference?”

She raised her chin a little. “No, Herr Crawford.  Your talent makes your mind difficult to delve.  Your heart rate and muscle tension indicated some stress was occurring, but other than that, you were your usual cranky self.  Have you been getting enough roughage?  Perhaps a high colonic would assist in clearing your thinking.”

He looked at her. 

A ghost of a neutral smile haunted her lips. 

He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of reacting. “Dismissed,” He stated.

“Good night, Herr Crawford,” she nodded archly and took her self out of the room.

“What _were_ you thinking?” Yuuji asked him when the door was shut.  “I mean, I don’t understand it.  You never got along with women, you argued with the things constantly in the hospital, and yet you bring that creature here.”

“I told you, if she gets on _my_ nerves that badly, just think of how she will work on the councils’ collective nerves,” Brad stated. 

Schuldig looked at Brad speculatively. 

Brad noticed it and shot him a ‘shut the hell up’ look.

The red head made the zipper mouth gesture.  “So, what do you see happening, now that we have Over Achiever Martz and Samurai Loony on the trail?”

Brad smirked, his lenses reflecting the light from the window as the garden’s security lights kicked in for the evening.  “Oh, they’ll catch him.”

“Poor Martz,” Yuuji said, shaking his head. 

*     *     * 

Brad had not told Aya anything of what he had seen.  He and Martz went to three hotels before their stalking around hallways and up elevators to each floor came up with something Martz described as “just a bad feeling, like something no good is going to come of this” but Aya only got the gist of, as his studying had not gone that far.  After getting the name of the room’s occupant from the registry (something his breathlessly arrogant officiousness worked quite well for) Martz rapped on the door to the room. 

Aya thought he was mad.  That, or wearing a bullet proof vest. 

Martz rapped again.  “It could be he is in the bath,” he said. 

Aya lost his patience and clapping a hand on Martz’ upper arm, pushed him aside.  He kicked the door open and strode in, drawing his katana. 

Ealdwin was shocked at this sudden intrusion.  He had woken from a much needed rest to hear the knocking and was just about to respond after pulling himself together.  Seeing this lunatic coming at him, panic did the rest.  He dove for the french door to the balcony, and shinnied over the railing, swinging to land on the one below. 

“Go!” Aya yelled at Martz, pointing to the door, then followed Ealdwin over the balcony. 

Martz hurried out into the hall, looking for the elevator. 

Ealdwin barged through the room under his, upsetting the two vacationers there, and ran out into the hallway.  Looking around, he saw the fire alarm and broke the glass, hitting the button. 

All hell broke loose. People surged into the hallways, evacuating the building, giving him cover--or so he thought. 

Aya caught up with him in the stairwell, chasing him down the utilitarian metal stair with the grace of one habitually diving up or down such after people he intended to kill. 

Martz, frustrated in his attempts to locate them, took the stairs as well, hitting on the right set by sheer instinct and hearing their pounding feet, came down the last level just in time to see their quarry misplace his footing as he looked back over his shoulder. He tumbled, caught the railing before he broke his neck and was on his feet again, limping, his stride broken. 

The Japanese, now forgoing the whole stair thing, leapt down on him like a panther, the sword striking its mark.  The foreign agent went down like a slaughtered cow; his brains and viscera spilling out on the landing and down the steps. He’d been half split like an anatomy diagram; the white of bone exposed, the god awful wetness of it, the stench filling the stairwell. 

Martz froze, his hand grasping the railing, the color draining from his whole body.  For a full minute, he could not draw breath, nor tear his eyes from the horror before him. 

Aya put his boot on the body and unstuck his sword from where it had caught on the man’s clavicle.  He snapped it out to one side to flick off the excess blood, then bent and wiped the blade off on the man’s clothes where they were not yet soaked. He sheathed it and turned to stride up the stairs.

Martz gapped, trying to make words again. 

Aya walked past him, then half turned.  “Come,” he said in that surprisingly deep voice. 

Martz still gapped. 

Aya scowled and caught him by the shoulder and turned him around to haul him with him.  Two floors up, he paused and looked down the stair well, remembering something. 

The fire alarm still ringing like mad.  He took one of Yuuji’s little toys out of his pockets, studied it for a moment, and pulled the little plastic tab on it that separated the battery from the connection.  He leaned over the railing and tossed it so that it fell, hit the landing and rolled into the mess that had been Ealdwin.  Then he dragged Martz out the access door into the hallway and kicked it shut it behind them. 

There was a quiet little “flumph!” and a drift of smoke soon escaped the stairwell.  By the time the fire department found it, the body would be cremated and the metal stairs half melted.  

It took twenty minutes for Martz to stop puking in the parking lot before Aya took his keys away from him and drove them back to the school.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	14. 14

Another morning, slightly fewer problems.  Brad sipped his coffee.  “Only pastry?” he eyed the platter of danish, strudel  and croissants.    
“It was Rabbi-chan’s turn to make breakfast,” Schuldig stated, tearing a croissant in half to stuff into his mouth.      
“I should have known,” Brad said dully, helping himself to an apricot cheese danish.     
Nagi raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.  Tot’s sugar cravings had been toned down somewhat lately, but like any addict, she had to come down slowly.     
“It’s awfully quite this morning,” Brad looked at the two empty chairs at their table in the huge cafeteria archly.    
“Someone was a little over excited last night,” Schuldig responded, flakes of croissant dribbling off his chin.  “The jet lag has worn off.  We wash our hands and the dust off our feet today, no?” he licked the buttery residue from his fingers unselfconsciously, sending a wave of heat up through Brad’s spine.  
“Maybe,” Brad said, just to annoy him.  But yes, that was the plan.  He had a few things to clean up with the council, and then they would chase down the timeline he had gotten a glimpse of last evening.  
London.  Not a place he was at all fond of.  Perhaps in the Roman Era, when ‘dirt and filth’ described only the streets themselves.  He sipped his coffee and put it all out of his mind for now.  Bad enough what the reaction was going to be when Tot found out she was going to the holy land of Cream Teas. He made a mental note to get some earplugs from the school’s shooting range.    
*     *     *  
Herr Holzweber walked into the outer office not knowing what he expected.  Nothing had been changed, except for a bouquet of roses on the corner of the secretary’s desk and a computer had replaced the typewriter.  He frowned at that.  He did not like the idea that things could be gotten at so easily.     
The young woman behind the desk stood as he had entered.  “Welcome back, Herr Crawford, Herr Holzweber.  I am Gudrun Traugott, your new executive secretary.  You may address me as Frau Traugott.”  
He studied her.  She looked harmless enough.  Wheat blond hair in a braided bun, glasses over pale blue eyes, good proportionate face, round chin, good posture, decent figure, not overblown like most girls these days.  She wore her uniform blouse buttoned up to the top, with the little ribbon tie in place with the school pin.  Her hands were at her sides, not folded in front or fidgeting.  She met his gaze levelly, without un-necessary emotion of any kind, charming and professional as well as easy on the eye.    
Crawford had been having him on.  This was nothing but a young woman, perhaps with some military training.  “Crawford tells me you’re some sort of Japanese mythological being.  You certainly don’t look it,” he laughed mildly.    
“Herr Crawford is quite correct,” she said just as mildly.     
Holzweber looked at her.  “Preposterous,” he said.  “Why you’re as human as I am, and a damn sight more lovely…”  
In that instant, the creature proved him wrong.    
Crawford had not seen this coming, nor was he mentally prepared for what he saw.  It was something that when he tried to remember it later, skipped off his brain and left behind it a horrific feeling of ‘don’t look!’.  If he did not remember, it could not have been.  But in that moment, that isolated, lock it up and throw away the key moment, he saw.  It left him scrabbling for the bathroom with roiling guts.  He didn’t know what the Chancellor did and did not care.         
He was washing his hands, his legs still weak and trembling a little as he stood at the sink, when there was a quiet tap at the door he recognized all too well, followed by the door opening.  Hospital staff habits.  Why did they even bother to knock?  “That was—disturbing.  And uncalled for,” he said curtly, trying to cover up the remaining fear.  
“I thought it would settle the matter once and for all,” Frau Traugott said.  “Herr Holzweber was not so fortunate in his self control. He has gone to his quarters to change.“  
“Well, I hope you’re happy,” he said, turning to face her.    
She smiled.  “Quite.  I daresay there will be no more quibbling from Herr Chancellor Holzweber as to my suitability for the position.  The staff and students have been recalled and will begin arriving in an hour.  Your team is packed and ready to go.  Is there anything further you will be requiring?” she moved to open the small window with the old fashioned crank handle.  
“Yes,” he said, rolling his sleeves down and buttoning his cuffs.  “I want a weekly report on the school and anything the council gets up to behind my back.”  
She nodded in assent.     
He thought of something Greifeldt had said.  “One more thing, and keep this on a very personal level.  No one else with my DNA is to survive Esset.  I don’t care what the excuses are—how foul or how noble the reasons. Anyone who turns up, be it a fetus or a full grown person with my DNA—goes.”  
She held out her, hand palm up.  “Your hand, Herr Crawford.”  
He hesitated, then warily held out his hand.  She took it and separating his index finger from the rest, ran her thumb over the tip.  There was a sharp pain as if she had lanced it with a rose thorn.  She ran the bleeding digit over her palm.  The smeared blood sank into the skin as if into a blotter and disappeared even before she released him.  
“Ouch,” he complained, sticking his finger into his mouth to suck the blood and pain away.  “You could have warned me.”  He had a little more sympathy for Schuldig now.       
“Don’t be such a wimp, Herr Crawford,” she smiled cruelly at him.  “I will not argue with you over it, but I will have my say.  A man who gives over his bloodline to death had better make the most of his own life while he can rise each morning to see the Sun,” she smile turned arch. “And you may yet change your mind,” she turned and left him to finish pulling himself back together.  “There is a cup of herbal tea, a multivitamin and some ‘power bars’ on a plate waiting for you.  You’ll need it to restore what you’ve lost,” she said over her shoulder.  
“Thank you, Nurse,” he said in sarcastic annoyance.     
*     *     *  
Having had the whole place to themselves for only a few days, it still seemed very strange to suddenly have the halls full of people.  Nagi and Tot navigated the tide of students in civies, half uniforms, and full uniforms lugging various sports bags, or pulling rolling luggage to glances and questioning stares, but no one accosted them.  Nagi wore the uniform’s insignia stripped version on a regular basis, passing it as a Japanese private school uniform, but Tot was dressed in a more down toned version of her Lollita look. Students tended to assume anyone dressed uniquely was an agent and ignored her.     
They walked into the Chancellor’s office to find the other four and Frau Traugott collected along with Greifeldt and Martz, who still looked quite stressed.     
“Young Naoe,” Greifeldt said, looking at him.  “You’ve grown.”  
“Sir,” Nagi responded.  Was this a reference to his actual growing or a bit of grown up pandering about his continued lack of actual height?  
/Stop being so paranoid/ Schuldig said in his mind.     
“And this young lady is?” Greifeldt looked at Crawford for clarification.     
“At this point in time we are not aware of her actual birth name,” Crawford said.   “She was a protégé of Takatori Masafume.  He had a habit of ‘rescuing’ young women and—restructuring their lives to secure loyal assistants.  She answers to Tot or ‘Totto’.  While she is not a talent, she is grounded in hand to hand combat, and has been trained in biological warfare lab work.  Her intelligence level is quite high, but her social skills are—somewhat retarded by previous trauma,” he finished carefully.  
Greifeldt was having a good look at the girl, who merely blinked at him in a return stare.  He shot a hand out toward her throat in a karate strike.    
She blocked without hesitation, then went for a kick before Nagi froze her.     
“It was a test,” Schuldig said, putting his arm across Tot’s torso, blocking her from Griefeldt.  Good thing he had warned Nagi to stop her, she had no problem with going at the man tooth and claw.  Her mind was utterly savage at that moment, the intent to kill at all costs hitting his mind like fireworks. He backed off from the potential for wilding with a bit more self discipline than he had ever had at her age.    
Nagi released her.  She caught her balance and stepped back warily, her mind actually resetting like a machine.  So that was how she stayed sane-ish, the telepath thought.  Switch off, switch on.         
“Excellent reflexes,” Griefeldt approved, though he would regret it later when the numbing blow to his arm wore off.  “Well,” he turned back to Crawford.  “You have your mission. I expect you will report success.  Frau Traugott, it has been a pleasure meeting you,” he held out his hand to shake hers.  “Herr Holzweber’s indisposition will not make your settling in more difficult, I trust?”  
“Not at all, Herr Councilor,” she said with mild brightness.  “I look forward to the challenge.”  
He hesitated.  “You really are—a what is it?” he looked at Crawford.       
“A ‘what is it’,” Crawford said. “Don’t make her prove it.”  
“Executive Administrative Assistant to the Academy Chancellor, Herr Greifeldt,” Frau Traugott said.  “And now that I have sworn my oath to the organization, I think we may all get on with our work.” She smiled politely.  “I must prepare for the Staff meeting and the student assembly in Her Holzweber’s unfortunate absence.  Obergefreiter Martz will be addressing the student body regarding the recent events leading to their compromise and its resolution.”  
Martz looked grey, but maintained his at attention posture.  
Aya didn’t openly sneer but Schuldig picked up the passing impulse to and gave his erstwhile enemy a wicked grin.     
“Sarazawa,” Griesfeldt turned to him.  “I trust you will refrain from blowing yourself up any further.”  
Yuuji smiled grimly.  He was never, ever going to hear the end of that.    
“Good day, Gentlemen, Ladies,” the council leader bowed slightly and turned to leave.     
“Get out, Martz,” Crawford ordered.     
The young security chief fled.     
“Go easy on the poor guy,” Yuuji said, amused. “You always take against people.”  
“Have I shot him yet?” Brad demanded.    
“You’ve learned self control?” Yuuji countered. “Honestly, what have you got against him?  He’s a nice enough fellow for one of ours.”  
“He’s a text book little toad,” Brad stated, putting on his coat and collecting his briefcase.  “At the appropriate age, he’ll marry a nice girl, have the requisite amount of nice children, and die a nice old man in his nice bed surrounded by his nice family.” He spat the word nice out like a swear.  “He’s everything we are fighting to protect.  I want to wring his neck with my bare hands.”  
“You need stress counseling,” Frau Traugott advised.  “Have a safe trip, gentlemen,” she said, making it clear they could vacate the office at any time as long as it was very soon.    
Yuuji opened the door and held it for the rest of them to troop out.     
The hall and foyer was moderately full of students, none of whom did more than glance their way, even as some squeezed past them, chattering or texting on their phones.     
Schuldig picked up something odd from Brad and nudged Yuuji. /What is he missing just now?/    
Yuuji laughed softly, realizing what he must mean. /They used to run and hide from him.  Now no one recognizes him./     
/Ah,/ Schuldig thought. /In short, he is old./  He moved to catch the door before Brad could open it and did so for him, pausing to look into his eyes.     
Brad looked back at him, then smiled and walked through the doorway.     
/And what was that?”/ Yuuji asked the telepath.  
Schuldig looked smug. /Nothing makes a man feel younger like a younger lover./ he licked his fingertip and marked the air.     
/Oh, you’re on, smart ass./ Yuuji threatened.     
/I’ll tell your boyfriend,/ Schuldig threatened right back.  
*     *     *  
Lord Richard Cripton set down the phone and frowned at the top of his desk.  Kritiker had been destroyed at the root, two of the Weiss team gone missing and turning up in Switzerland with Esset members.  Crasher’s Queen had passed along an interesting suspicion.     
So many of their members had gone over to the other side, the way they were forced to live getting to them.  Stable, well adjusted people did not become mercenary assassins.  It was easy to see how the lines could become blurred, how might became right.  Becoming jaded with disgust and surviving to get out of it alive with a golden parachute sometimes made people ignore the moral high ground.     
Could Yohji Kudoh have been a double agent?  The two times he had worked in England, he’d done his job well, no complaints.  His targets had been infiltration and running a data theft both times, sterling performance.  The rest of the time he had spent in bars, drunk or hung over.  “A real sleaze ball,” Miss Mihirogi had pronounced him.     
“We’ve had too many casualties to investigate Fujimiya and Kudoh’s where abouts,”  Queen had warned him.  “The outright war with Esset, the bomb attack on the Takatori estate, who knows what the hell is going on, we have no idea of what Esset has left in place with the state of Shinjuku. Crasher is going to have to take up the slack Weiss left.  We don’t have time to go chasing down deserters across oceans.”          
Nor had he, really.  But something odd was going on, what with this super human making drug.  Someone was experimenting on human beings, giving them almost paranormal powers—and here were two of Weiss in the hands of Esset, an organization not exactly known for humanitarian gestures to anyone outside its select little enclave.  It made a bit of sense that Esset might be behind Blue Eyes, with that Aryan moniker.     
He sat back and frowned at the photo displayed on his laptop screen.      
  The end for now. ^_^    
   
    


End file.
